WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS

103419

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m: SOUT

Village of Atuona, showing peak of Temetfo
The author's ho ns e is the small white speck i, theLnt.r

WHITE
IN THE SOBTH SEAS

BY

FREDERICK O'BRIEN

WITH MANY
ILLUSTRATIONS

FROM
PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YQKK

;THE CENTDBY

1924

Copyright, 1919, by
THE CBNTCBY Co.

Published, September, 1919

FOREWORD

There is in the nature of every man, I firmly believe,
a longing to see and know the strange places of the
world. Life imprisons us all in its coil of circumstance,
and the dreams of romance that color boyhood are
forgotten, but they do not die. They stir at the sight
of a white-sailed ship beating out to the wide sea; the
smell of tarred rope on a blackened wharf, or the touch
of the cool little breeze that rises when the stars come
out will waken them again. Somewhere over the rim
of the world lies romance, and every heart yearns to
go and find it.

It is not given to every man to start on the quest p
the rainbow's end. Such fantastic pursuit is not for
him who is bound by ties of home and duty and fortune*
to-mafce. He has other adventure at his own door,
sterner fights to wage, and, perhaps, higher rewards to
gain. Still, the ledgers close sometimes on a sigh, and
by the cosiest fireside one will see in the coals pictures
that have nothing to do with wedding rings or balances
at the bank.

It is for those who stay at home yet dream of f oreign
places that I have written this book, a record of oi*e
happy year spent among the simple, friendly cannibals
of Atuona valley, on the island of Hiva-oa in the Mar-
quesas* In its pages there is little of profound re-
search, nothing, I feagc, to startle the anthropologist or

FOREWORD

to revise encyclopedias ; such expectation was far from
my thoughts when I sailed from Papeite on the Morning
Star. I went to see what I should see, and to learn
whatever should be taught me by the days as they came.
What I saw and what I learned the reader will see
and learn, and no more.

Days, like people, give more when they are ap-
proached in not too stern a spirit. So I traveled lightly,
without the heavy baggage of the ponderous-minded
scholar, and the reader who embarks with me on the
"long cruise" need bring with him only an open mind
and a love for the strange and picluresque. He will
come back, I hope, as I did, with some glimpses into
the primitive customs of the long-forgotten ancestors
of the white race, a deeper wonder at the mysteries
of the world, and a memory of sun-steeped days on
white beaches, of palms and orchids and the childlike
savage peoples who live in the bread-fruit groves of
"Bloody Hiva-oa."

The author desires to express here his thanks to Rose
Wilder Lane, to whose editorial assistance the publica-
tion of this book is very largely due.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Farewell to Papeite beach; at sea in the Morning Star;
Darwin's theory of the continent that sank beneath
the waters of the South Seas .......

CHAPTER II

The trade-room of the Morning Star; Lying Bill Pincher;
M. L'Hermier des Plantes, future governor of the
Marquesas; story of McHenry and the little native
boy, His Dog ......... . 9

CHAPTER III

Thirty-seven days at sea; life of the sea-birds; strange
phosphorescence; first sight of Fatu-hiva; history of
the islands ; chant of the Raiateans ..... 20

CHAPTER IV

Anchorage of Taha-Uka; Exploding Eggs, and his en-
gagement as valet ; inauguration of the new governor ;
danoe on the palace lawn ........ 39

CHAPTER V

First night in Atuona valley; sensational arrival of the

Golden Bed ; Titihuti's tattooed legs ..... 41

CHAPTER VI

Visit of Chief Seventh Man Who is So Angry He Wallows
in the Mire; journey to Vait-hua on Tahuata island;
fight with the devil-fish; story of a cannibal feast and
the two who escaped ......... 5$

vli

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII PAGE

Idyllic valley of Vait-hua ; the beauty of Vanquished Often ;
bathing on the beach ; an unexpected proposal of mar-
riage 61

CHAPTER VIII

Communal life ; sport in the waves ; fight of the sharks and
the mother whale ; a day in the mountains ; death of
Le Capitane Halley ; return to Atuona . , . . 74

CHAPTER IX

The Marquesans at ten o'clock mass; a remarkable con-
versation about religions and Joan of Arc in which
Great Fern gives his idea of the devil . . . ,. 91

CHAPTER X

The marriage of Malicious Gossip ; matrimonial customs of
the simple natives; the domestic difficulties of
Haabuani ,, 104

CHAPTER XI

Pilling the popoi pits in the season of the breadfruit;

legend of the mei; the secret festival in a hidden valley 113

CHAPTER XH

A walk in the jungle ; the old woman in the breadfruit tree ;

a night in a native hut on the mountain . 123

CHAPTER Xm

The household of Lam Kai Oo; copra making; marvels of
the cocoanut-groves ; the sagacity of pigs ; and a crab
that knows the laws of gravitation 183

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIV

Visit of Le Moine ; the story of Paul Gauguin ; his house,
and a search for his grave beneath the white cross of
Calvary .............

CHAPTER XV

Death of Aumia ; funeral chant and burial customs ; causes

for the death of a race ........ 154

CHAPTER XVI

A savage dance, a drama of the sea, of danger and feast-

ing; the rape of the lettuce ....... 167

CHAPTER XVII

A walk to the Forbidden Place ; Hot Tears, the hunchback ;
the story of Behold the Servant of the Priest, told by
Malicious Gossip in the cave of Enainoa * 178

CHAPTER XVIII

A search for rubber-trees on the plateau of Ahoa ; a fight
with the wild white dogs ; story of an ancient migra-
tion, told by the wild cattle hunters in the Cave of the
Spine of the Chinaman ........ 189

CHAPTER XIX

A feast to the men of Motopu ; the making of Jcava, and its
drinking; the story of the Girl Who Lost Her
Strength ............ 200

CHAPTER XX

A journey to Taaoa ; Kahuiti, the cannibal chief, and his

story of an old war caused by an unfaithful woman , S14

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXI

The crime of Huahine for love of Weaver of Mats ; story
of Tahia's white man who was eaten ; the disaster that
befell Honi, the white man who used his harpoon
against his friends 228

CHAPTER XXII

The memorable game for the matches in the cocoanut-

grove of Lam Kai Oo 240

CHAPTER XXin
Mademoiselle N ,.,.... 258

CHAPTER XXIV

A journey to Nuka-hiva; story of the celebration of the
fete of Joan of Arc, and the miracles of the white
horse and the girl 272

CHAPTER XXV

America's claim to the Marquesas ; adventures of Captain
Porter in 1812 ; war between Haapa and Tai-o-hae,
and the conquest of Typee valley . 290

CHAPTER XXVI

A visit to Typee ; story of the old man who returned too

late 802

CHAPTER XXVII

Journey on the Roberta; the winged cockroaches ; arrival

at a Swiss paradise in the valley of Oomoa . . . 810

CHAPTER XXVIII

Labor in the South Seas; some random thoughts on the
"survival of the fittest" ..,

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER XXIX PAfiB

The white man who danced in Oomoa valley ; a wild-boar ,
hunt in the hills ; the feast of the triumphant hunters
and a dance in honor of Grelet ,. 329

CI-IAPTE?- XXX

A visit to Hanavave ; Pere Olivier at home ; the story of the
last battle between Hanahouua and Oi, told by the
sole survivor; the making of tapa cloth, and the
ancient garments of the Marquesans 346

CHAPTER XXXI

Fishing in Hanavave ; a deep-sea battle with a shark ; Red
Chicken shows how to tie ropes to sharks* tails ; night-
fishing for dolphins, and the monster sword-fish that
overturned the canoe; the native doctor dresses Red
Chicken's wounds and discourses on medicine . . 358

CHAPTER XXXII

A journey over the roof of the world to Oomoa; an en-
counter with a wild woman of the hills .

CHAPTER XXXIII

Return in a canoe to Atuona ; Tetuahunahuna relates the
story of the girl who rode the white horse in the cele-
bration of the fete of Joan of Arc in Tai-o-hae ; Proof
that sharks hate women; steering by the stars to
Atuona beach 383

CHAPTER XXXIV

Sea sports ; curious sea-foods found at low tide ; the pe-
culiarities of sea-centipedes and how to cook and eat
them 400

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXXV

Court day in Atuona ; the case of Daughter of the Pigeon
and the sewing-machine; the story of the perfidy of
Drink of Beer and the death of Earth Worm who
tried to till the governor ., 409

CHAPTER XXXVI

The madman Great Moth of the Night ; story of the famine

and the one family that ate pig 420

CHAPTER XXXVII

A visit to the hermit of Taha-Uka valley ; the vengeance
that made the Scallamera lepers; and the hatred of
Mohuto 4S7

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Last days in Atuona ; My Darling Hope's letter from her
son

CHAPTER XXXIX

The chants of departure; night falls on the Land of the

War Fleet ......... ......... 443

ILLUSTRATIONS

[Village of Atuona, showing peak of Temetiu

Frontispiece

FACING PAQB

Idling away the sunny hours 72

Nothing to do but rest all day 73

Interior of Island of Fatu-Hiva, where the author

walked over the mountains 188

The plateau of Ahoa 189

Near the Mission at Hanavave 312

Starting from Hanavave for Oomoa .--... 313

WHITE SHADOWS
IN THE SOUTH SEAS

WHITE SHADOWS
IN THE SOUTH SEAS

CHAPTER ONE

farewell to Papeite beach; at sea in the Mormng Star; Darwin's theory
of the continent that sank beneath the waters of the South Seas.

BY the white coral wall of Papeite beach the
schooner Fetia Tcdao (Morning Star) lay ready
to put to sea. Beneath the skyward-sweeping
green heights of Tahiti the narrow shore was a mass of
3olored gowns, dark faces, slender waving amis. AH
Papeite* flower-crowned and weeping, was gathered
beside the blue lagoon.

Lamentation and wailing followed the brown sailors
as they came over the side and slowly began to cast the
moorings that held the Morning Star. Few are the
ships that sail many seasons among the Dangerous
Islands. They lay their bones on rock or reef or sink
in the deep, and the lovers, sons ,and Inlands of the
women who weep on the beach return no more to the
huts in the cocoanut groves. So, at each sailing on
the "long course" the anguish is keen.

ff la ora na I te Atuat Farewell and God keep
you!" the women cried as they stood beside the half-
buried cannon that serve to make fast the ships by the
coral bank. From the deck of the nearby Hinano came

*

4 WHITE SHADOWS

the music of an accordeon and a chorus of familiar
words:

"/ teie we mdhana
Ne tere no oe e Hati
Na te Moana!

Let us sing and make merry,
For we journey over the sea !"

It was the Himene Tatou Arearea. Kelly, the wan-
dering I. W. W., self -acclaimed delegate of the mythical
Union of Beach-combers and Stowaways, was at the
valves of the accordeon, and about him squatted a ring
of joyous natives. "Wela ka hao! Hot stuff!" they
shouted.

Suddenly Caroline of the Marquesas and Mamoe
of Moorea, most beautiful dancers of the quays, flung
themselves into the upaupahura, the singing dance of
love, Kelly began "Tome! Tome!" a Hawaiian hula.
Men unloading cargo on the many schooners dropped
their burdens and began to dance. Rude squareheads
of the f o'c'sles beat time with pannikins. Clerks in the
traders* stores and even Marechel, the barber, were
swept from counters and chairs by the sensuous melody,
and bareheaded in the white sun they danced beneath
the crowded balconies of the Cercle Bougainville, the

Note. Foreign words in a book are like rocks in a path. There are
two ways of meeting the difficulty; the reader may leap over them, or use
them as stepping stones. I have written this book so that they may easily
be leaped over by the hasty, but he will lose much enjoyment by doing so*;
I would urge him to pronounce them as he goes. Marquesan words have
a flavor all their own ; much of the simple poetry of the islands is in them.
The rules for pronouncing them are simple; consonants have the sounds
usual in English, vowels have the Latin value, that is, a is ah, e is ay, i is
ee, o is oh, and u is oo. Every letter is pronounced, and there are no ac-
cents. The Marquesans had no written language, and their spoken tongue
was reproduced as simply as possifck by the missionaries.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 5

club by the lagoon. The harbor of Papeite knew ten
minutes of unrestrained merriment, tears forgotten,
while from the warehouse of the navy to the Poodle
Stew cafe the hula reigned.

Under the gorgeous flamboyant trees that paved
their shade with red-gold blossoms a group of white
men sang:

* Well, ah fare you well, we can stay no more with you, my love,
Down, set down your liquor and the girl from off your knee,
For the wind has come to say
*You must take me while you may,
If you ? d go to Mother Carey !*
(Walk her down to Mother Carey!)

Oh, we *re bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks
at sea!"

The anchor was up, the lines let go, and suddenly
from the sea came a wind with rain.

The girls from the Cocoanut House, a flutter of bril-
liant scarlet and pink gowns, fled for shelter, tossing
blossoms of the sweet tiati Tahiti toward their sailor
lovers as they ran. Marao, the haughty queen, drove
rapidly away in her old chaise, the Princess Boots
leaning out to wave a slender hand. Prince Hinoi, the
fat spendthrift who might have been a king, leaned
from the balcony of the club, glass in hand, and shouted,
ff Aroha i te revaraa!" across the deserted beach.

So we left Papeite, the gay Tahitian capital, while a
slashing downpour drowned the gay flamboyant blos-
soms, our masts and rigging creaking in the gale, and
the sea breaking white on the coral reef.

Like the weeping women, who doubtless had alrea^
dried their tears, the sky began to smile before.

WHITE SHADOWS

reached the treacherous pass in the outer reef. Be-
yond Moto Utu, the tiny islet in the harbor that had
been harem and fort in kingly days, we saw the surf
foaming on the coral, and soon were through the nar-
row channel.

We had lifted no canvas in the lagoon, using only our
engine to escape the coral traps. Past the ever-present
danger, with the wind now half a gale and the rain
falling again in sheets the intermittent deluge of the
season the Morning Star, under reefed foresail, main-
sail and staysail, pointed her delicate nose toward the
Dangerous Islands and hit hard the open sea.

She rode the endlessly-tossing waves like a sea-gull,
carrying her head with a care-free air and dipping to
the waves in jaunty fashion. Her lines were very fine,
tapering and beautiful, even to the eye of a land-lub*
her.

A hundred and six feet from stem to stern, twenty-
three feet of beam and ten feet of depth, she was loaded
to water's edge with cargo for the islands to which we
were bound. Lumber lay in the narrow lanes between
cabin-house and rails; even the lifeboats were piled witK
cargo. Those who reckon dangers do not laugh much in
these seas. There was barely room to move about on
the deck of the Morning Star; merely a few steps were
possible abaft the wheel amid the play of main-sheet
boom and traveler. Here, while my three fellow-pas-
sengers went below, I stood gazing at the rain-whipped
illimitable waters ahead.

Where is the boy who has not dreamed of the cannibal
^es, those strange, fantastic places over the rim of the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 7

world, where naked brown men move like shadows
through imimagined jungles, and horrid feasts are cele-
brated to the "boom, boom, boom!" of the twelve-foot
drums?

Years bring knowledge, paid for with the dreams of
youth. The wide, vague world becomes familiar, be-
comes even common-place. London, Paris, Venice,
many-colored Cairo, the desecrated crypts of the pyra-
mids, the crumbling villages of Palestine, no longer
glimmer before me in the iridescent glamor of fancy,
for I have seen them. But something of the boyish
thrill that filled me when I pored over the pages of
Melville long ago returned while I stood on the deck
of the Morning Star, plunging through the surging
Pacific in the driving tropic rain.

Many leagues before us lay Les Isles Dangereu? "
the Low Archipelago, first stopping-point on o^"
journey to the far cannibal islands yet another thousv, *
miles away across the empty seas. Before we saw ,
green banners of Tahiti's cocoanut palms again ^
would travel not only forward over leagues of tossi .
water but backward across centuries of time* For L
those islands isolated from the world for eons there
remains a living fragment of the childhood of our Cau-
casian race.

Darwin's theory is that these islands are the tops of
a submerged continent, or land bridge, which stretches
its crippled body along the floor of the Pacific for thou-
sands of leagues. A lost land, whose epic awaits the
singer; a mystery perhaps forever to be unsolved.
There are great monuments, graven objects, hieroglyph-

8 WHITE SHADOWS

ics, customs and languages, island peoples with suggest-
ive legends all, perhaps, remnants of a migration from
Asia or Africa a hundred thousand years ago.

Over this land bridge, mayhap, ventured the Cauca-
sian people, the dominant blood in Polynesia to-day, and
when the continent fell from the sight of sun and stars
save in those spots now the mountainous islands like
Tahiti and the Marquesas, the survivors were isolated
for untold centuries.

Here in these islands the brothers of our long-forgot-
ten ancestors have lived and bred since the Stone Age,
cut off from the main stream of mankind's develop-
ment. Here they have kept the childhood customs of
white race, savage and wild, amid their primitive
savage life. Here, three centuries ago, they were
Discovered by the peoples of the great world, and, rudely
tei*ountering a civilization they did not build, they are

^g here. With their passing vanishes the last living
thre with our own pre-historic past. And I was to see
to Before it disappears forever.

CHAPTER II

The trade-room of ttoe Morning Star; Lying Bill Pincher; M. L'Hermier
des Plantes, future governor of the Marquesas; story of McHenry and
the little native boy, His Dog.

COME 'ave a drink!" Captain Pincher called from
the cabin, and leaving the spray-swept deck
where the rain drummed on the canvas awn-
ing I went down the four steps into the narrow cabin-
house.

The cabin, about twenty feet long, had a tiny semi-
private room for Captain Pincher, and four berths
ranged about a table. Here, grouped around a demi-
john of rum, I found Captain Pincher with my three
fellow-passengers; McHenry and Gedge, the traders,
and M. L'Hermier des Plantes, a young officer of the
French colonial army, bound to the Marquesas to be
their governor.

The captain was telling the story of the wreck in
which he had lost his former ship. He had tied up to
a reef for a game of cards with a like-minded skipper,
who berthed beside him. The wind changed while they
slept. Captain Pincher awoke to find his schooner
breaking her backs on the coral rocks.

"Oo can say wot the blooming wind will do?" he said,
thumping the table with his glass. "There was Willy's
schooner tied up next to me, and 'e got a slant and slid
away, while my boat busts 'er sides open on the reef.
The 'ole blooming atoll was 'eaped with the blooming
cargo. Willy 'ad luck; I 'ad 'ell. It 's all an 'azaxd."

10 WHITE SHADOWS

He had not found his aitches since he left Liverpool,
thirty years earlier, nor dropped his silly expletives.
A gray-haired, red-faced, laughing man, stoekily built,
mild mannered, he proved, as the afternoon wore on, to
be a man from whom Munchausen might have gained
a story or two.

"They call me Lying Bill," he said to me. "You
can't believe wot I say."

"He's straight as a mango tree, Bill Pincher is,"
McHenry asserted loudly. "He '$ a terrible liar about
stories, but he 's the best seaman that comes to T'yti, and
square as a bisfcuit tin. You know how, when that
schooner was stole that he was mate on, and the rotten
thief rim away with her and a woman, Bill he went after
"em, and brought the schooner back from Chile. Bill,
he *s whatever he says he is, all right but he can sail a
schooner, buy copra and shell cheap, sell goods to the
bloody natives, and bring back the money to the owners.
That 's what I call an honest man."

Lying Bill received these hearty words with some-
thing less than his usual good-humor. There was no
friendliness in his eye as he looked at McHenry,' Tvhose
empty glass remained empty until he himself refilled
it. Bullet-headed, beady-eyed, a chunk of rank flesh
shaped by a hundred sordid adventures, McHenry
clutched at equality with these men, and it eluded him.
Lying Bill, making no reply to his enthusiastic com-
mendation, retired to his bunk with a paper-covered
novel, and to cover the rebuff McHenry turned to talk
of trade with Gedge, who spoke little.

The traderoom of the Morning Star, opening from
the cabin, was to me the door to romance. When

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 11

a boy there was more flavor in traderooms than in war,
To have seen one would have been as a glimpse of the
Holy Grail to a sworn knight. Those traderooms of
my youthful imagination smelt of rum and gun-powder,
and beside them were racks of rifles to repel the dusky
figures coming over the bulwarks.

The traderoom of the Morning Star was odorous,
too. It had no window, and when one opened the door
all was obscure at first, while smells of rank Tahiti
tobacco, cheap cotton prints, a broken bottle of perfume
and scented soaps struggled for supremacy. Gradually
the eye discovered shelves and bins and goods heaped
from floor to ceiling; pins and anchors, harpoons and
pens, crackers and jewelry, cloth, shoes, medicine and
tomahawks, socks and writing paper.

Trade business, McHenry's monologue explained, is
not what it was. When these petty merchants dared
not trust themselves ashore their guns guarded against
too eager customers. But now almost every inhabited
island has its little store, and the trader has to pursue
his buyers, who die so fast that he must move from island
to island in search of population.

"Booze is boss," said McHenry, "I have two thou-
sand pounds in bank in Australia, all made by selling
liquor to the natives. It 's against French law to sell
or trade or give 'em a drop, but we all do it. If you
don't have it, you can't get cargo. In the diving season
it 's the only damn thing that '11 pass. The divers '11
dig up from five to fifteen dollars a bottle for it, de-
pending on the French being on the job or not. Ain't
that so, Gedge?"

' C'est wti? Gedge assented. He spoke in French,

12 WHITE SHADOWS

ostensibly for the benefit of M. L'Hermier des Plantes,
That young governor of the Marquesas was not given
to saying much, his chief interest in life appearing to be
an ample black Whisker, to which he devoted incessant
tender care. After a few words of broken English he
had turned a negligent attention to the pages of a
Marquesan dictionary, in preparation for his future
labors among the natives. Gedge, however, continued
to talk in the language of courts.

It was obvious that McHenry's twenty-five years in
French possessions had not taught him the white man's
language. He demanded brusquely, "What are you
oui-oui-mg for?" and occasionally interjected a few
words of bastard French in an attempt to be jovial. To
this Gedge paid little attention.

Gedge was chief of the commercial part of the ex-
pedition, and his manner proclaimed it. Thin-lipped,
cunning-eyed, but strong and self-reliant, he was ab-
sorbed in the chances of trade. He had been twenty
years in the Marquesas islands. A shrewd man among
Kanakas, unscrupulous by his own account, he had pros-
pered. Now, after selling his business, he was paying
a last visit to his long-time home to settle accounts.

" 'Is old woman is a barefoot girl among the canni-
bals," Lying Bill said to me later, " ? E 'as given a
*ole army of ostriches to fortune, 'e 'as."

One of Captain Pincher's own sons was assistant* to
the engineer, Ducat, and helped in the cargo work.
The lad lived forward with the crew, so that we saw
nothing of him socially, and his father never spoke to
him save to give an order or a reprimand, Native moth-
ers mourn often the lack of fatherly affection in their

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 13

white mates. Illegitimate children are held cheap by
the whites.

For two days at sea after leaving Papeite we did not
see the sun. This was the rainy and hot season, a time
of calms and hurricanes, of sudden squalls and madden-
ing quietudes, when all signs fail and the sailor must
stand by for the whims of the wind if he would save
himself and his ship. For hours we raced along at seven
or eight knots, with a strong breeze on the quarter and
the seas ruffling about our prow. For still longer hours
we pushed through a windless calm by motor power.
Showers fell incessantly.

We lived in pajamas, barefooted, unshaven and un-
washed. Fresh water was limited, as it would be im-
possible to replenish our casks for many weeks. Me-
Henry said it was not difficult to accustom one's self
to lack of water, both externally and internally.

There was a demijohn of strong Tahitian rum al-
ways on tap in the cabin. Here we sat to eat and re-
mained to drink and read and smoke. There was
Bordeaux wine at luncheon and dinner, Martinique and
Tahitian rum and absinthe between meals. The ship's
bell was struck by the steersman every half hour, and
McHenry made it the knell of an ounce.

Captain Pincher took a jorum every hour or two
and retired to his berth and novels, leaving the naviga-
tion of the Morning Star to the under-officers. Ducat,
the third officer, a Breton, joined us at meals. He was
a decent, clever fellow in his late twenties, ambitious and
clear-headed, but youthfully impressed by McHenry's
self -proclaimed wickedness.

One night after dinner he and McHenry were ban-

14 WHITE SHADOWS

tering each other after a few drinks of rum* McHenry
said, "Say, how 's your kanaka woman?"

Ducat's fingers tightened on his glass. Then, speak-
ing English and very precisely, he asked, "Do you
mean my wife?"

"I mean your old woman. What's this wife busi-

ness?"

"She is my wife, and we have two children."

McHenry grinned. "I know all that. Didn't I
know her before you? She was mine first."

Ducat got up. We all got up. The air became
tense, and in the silence there seemed no motion of ship
or wave. I said to myself, "This is murder,"

Ducat, very pale, an inscrutable look on his face,
his black eyes narrowed, said quietly, "Monsieur, do
you mean that?"

"Why, sure I do? Why should n't I mean it? It's
true."

None of us moved, but it was as if each of us stepped
back, leaving the two men facing each other. In this
circle no one would interfere. It was not our affair.
Our detachment isolated the two McHenry quite
drunk, in full command of his senses but with no con-
trolling intelligence; Ducat not at all drunk, studying
the situation, considering in his rage and humiliation
what would best revenge him on this man.

Ducat spoke, "McHenry, come out of this cabin with

me."

"What for?"

"Come with me."

"Oh, all right, all right," McHenry said

We stepped back as they passed us. They wsnt up

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 15

the steps to the deck. Ducat paused at the break of
the poop and stood there, speaking to McHenry. We
could not hear his words. The schooner tossed idly, a
faint creaking of the rigging came down to us in the
cabin. The same question was in every eye. Then
Ducat turned on his heel, and McHenry was left alone.
Our question was destined to remain unanswered.
Whatever Ducat had said, it was something that hushed
McHenry forever. He never mentioned the subject
again, nor did any of us. But McHenry's attitude
had subtly changed. Ducat's words had destroyed that
last secret refuge of the soul in which every man keeps
the vestiges of self -justification and self-respect.

McHenry sought me out that night while I sat on
the cabin-house gazing at the great stars of the South-
ern Cross, and began to talk.

u N"ow take me," he said, "I 'm not so bad. I 'm as
good as most people. As a matter of fact, I ain't done
anything more in my life than anybody 'd 've done, if
they had the chance. Look at me I had a singlet an'
a pair of dungarees when I landed on the beach in
T'yti, an' look at me now! I ain't done so bad!"

He must have felt the unconvincing ring of his tone,
lacking the fall and complacent self-assurance usual
to it, for as if groping for something to make good the
lack he sought backward through his memories and un-
folded bit by bit the tale of his experiences. Scotch
born of drunken parents, he had been reared in the
slums of American cities and the forecastles of Ameri-
can ships. A waif, newsboy, loafer, gang-fighter and
water-front pirate, he had come into the South Seas
twenty-five years earlier, shanghaied when drunk in

16 WHITE SHADOWS

San Francisco. He looked back proudly on a quartei
of a century of trading, thieving, selling contraband
rrau and opium, pearl-buying and gambling.

But this pride on which he had so long depended failed
him now. Successful fights that he had waged, profit
able crimes committed, grew pale upon his tongue,
Listening in the darkness while the engine drove us
through a black sea and the canvas awning flapped over-
head, I felt the baffled groping behind his words.

"So I don't tak6 nothing from no man!" he boasted,
and fell into uneasy silence. "The folks in these islands
know me, all right!" he asserted, and again was dumb,

"Now there was a kid, a little Penryn boy/' he said
suddenly, "When I was a trader on Penryn he was
there, and he used to come around my store, TI#1
kid liked me. Why, that kid, he was crazy about me
It 5 s a fact, he was crazy about me, that kid was."

His voice was fumbling back toward its old assur-
ance, but there was wonder in it, as though he was in-
credulous of this foothold he had stumbled upon. He
repeated, "That kid was crazy about me!

"He used to hang around, and help me with the
canned goods, and he J d go fishing with me, and shoot-
ing. He was a regular what do you call 'em? These
dogs that go after things for you? He 'd go under the
water and bring in the big fish for me- And he liked
to do it. You never saw anything like the way that
kid was.

"I used to let him come into the store and hang
around, you know. Not that I cared anything for the
kid myself; I ain't that kind. But I 'd just give him
some tinned biscuits now and then, the way you 'd do,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 17

He did n't have no father or mother. His father had
been eaten by a shark, and his mother was dead. The
kid did n't have any name because his mother had died
so young he had n't got any name, and his father had n't
called him anything but boy. He give himself a name
to me, and that was 'Your Dog/

"He called himself my dog, you see. But his name
for it was Your Dog, and that was because he fetched
and carried for me, like as if he was one. He was that
kind of kid. Not that I paid much attention to him.

"You know there 's a leper settlement on Penryn,
off across the lagoon, I ain't afraid of leprosy
y' understand, because I Ve dealt with 'em for years,
ate with 'em an' slept with 'em, an' all that, like every-
body down here. But all the same I don't want to have
'em right around me all the time. So one day the
doctor come to look over the natives, and he come an'
told me the little kid, My Dog, was a leper.

"Now I was n't attached to the kid. I ain't attached
to nobody. I ain't that kind of a man. But the kid
was sort of used to me, and I was used to havin' him
around. He used to come in through the window.
He 'd just come in, nights, and sit there an' never
say a word. When I was goin' to bed he 'd say, *Mc-
Henry, Your Dog is goin* now, but can't Your Dog
sleep here?' Well, I used to let him sleep on the floor,
no harm in that. But if he was a leper he 'd got to
go to the settlement, so I told him so.

"He made such a fuss, cryin' around By God, I
had to boot him out of the place. I said: 'Get out.
I don't want you snivelin' around me/ So he went.

"It 's a rotten, God-forsaken place, I guess. I don't

18 WHITE SHADOWS

know. The government takes care of 'em. It ain't
my aff air, I guess for a leper colony it ain't so bad.

"Anyway, I was goin' to sell out an' leave Penryn.
The diving season was over. One night I had the door
locked an* was goin* over my accounts to see if I
could n't collect some more dough from the natives, I
heard a noise, and By God! there comin' through the
window was My Dog. He come up to me, and I said:
'Stand away, there!' I ain't afraid of leprosy, hut
there 's no use takin' chances. You never know.

"Well sir, that kid threw himself down on the floor,
and he said, 'McHenry, I knowed you was goin' away
and I had to come to see you.' That 's what he said
in his Kanaka lingo.

"He was cryin', and he looked pretty bad. He said
he couldn't stand the settlement. He said, 'I don't
never see you there. Can't I live here an' be Your
Dog again?'

"I said, 'You got to go to the settlement.' I was n't
goin' to get into trouble on account of no Kanaka kid.

"Now, that kid had swum about five miles in the
night, with sharks all around him the very place where
his father had gone into a shark. That kid thought
a lot of me. Well, I made him go back. 'If you don't
go, the doctor will come, an' then you got to go,' I
said. 'You better get out. I *m goin' away, anyhow,'
I said, I was figuring on my accounts, an' I did n't
want to be bothered with no fool kid.

"Well, he hung around awhile, makin' a fuss, till I
opened the door an' told him to git. Then he went
quiet enough. He went right down the beach into
the water an' swum away, back to the settlement.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 19

"Now look here, that kid liked me. He Knowed me
well, too he was around my store pretty near all the
time I was in Penryn. He was a fool kid. My
Dog, that was the name he give himself. An' while
I was in T'yti, here, I get a letter from the trader that
took over my store, and he sent me a letter from that
kid. It was wrote in Kanaka. He couldn't write
much, but a little* Here, I '11 show you the letter.
You '11 see what that kid thought of me."

In the light from the open cabin window I read the
letter, painfully written on cheap, blue-lined paper.

"Greetings to you, McHenry, in Tahiti, from Your
Dog. It is hard to live without you. It is long since I
have seen you. It is hard. I go to join my father.
I give myself to the mako. To you, McHenry, from
Your Dog, greetings and farewell."

Across the bottom of the letter was written in Eng-
lish: "The kid disappeared from the leper settlement.
They think he drowned himself."

CHAPTER III

Thirty-seven days at sea; life of the sea-birds; strange phosphorescence;
first sight of Fatu-hiva; history of the islands; chant of the Raiateans.

THIRTY-SEVEN days at sea brought us to the
eve of our landing in Hiva-oa in the Marquesas,
Thirty-seven monotonous days, varied only by
rain-squalls and sun, by calm or threatening seas, by
the changing sky. Rarely a passing schooner lifted
its sail above the far circle of the horizon* It was as
though we journeyed through space to another world.

Yet all around us there was life life in a thousand
varying forms, filling the sea and the air. On calm
mornings the swelling waves were splashed by myriads
of leaping fish, the sky was the playground of innumera-
ble birds, soaring, diving, following their accustomed
ways through their own strange world oblivious of the
human creatures imprisoned on a bit of wood below
them* Surrounded by a universe filleji with pulsing,
sentient life clothed in such multitudinous forms, man
learns humility. He shrinks to a speck or^an illimitable
ocean.

I spent long afternoons lying on the cabin-house,
watching the frigates, the tropics, gulls, boobys, and
other sea-birds that sported through the sky in great
numbers. The frigate-birds were called by the sailors
the man-of-war bird, and also the sea-hawk. They
are marvelous flyers, owing to the size of the pectoral

20

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 21

muscles, which compared with those of other birds are
extraordinarily large. They cannot rest on the water,
hut must sustain their flights from land to land, yet
here they were in mid-ocean.

My eyes would follow one higher and higher till he
hecame a mere dot in the blue, though but a few min-
utes earlier he had risen from his pursuit of fish in the
water. He spread his wings fully and did not move
them as he climbed from air-level to air-level, but his
long forked tail expanded and closed continuously.

Sighting a school of flying-fish, which had been driven
to frantic leaps from the sea by pursuing bonito, he
begins to descend. First his coming down is like that
of an aeroplane, in spirals, but a thousand feet from
his prey he volplanes ; he falls like a rocket, and seizing
a fish in the air, he wings his way again to the clouds,

If he cannot find flying-fish, he stops gannets and
terns in mid-air and makes them disgorge their catch,
j^vhich he seizes as it falls. Refusal to give up the food
is punished by blows on the head, but the gannets and
terns so fear the frigate that they seldom have the
courage to disobey. I think a better name for the
frigate would fce pirate, for he is a veritable pirate of
the air. Yet no law restrains him.

I observed" that the male frigate has a red pouch
under the throat which he puffs up with air when he flies
far. It must have some other purpose, for the female
lacks it, and she needs wind-power more than the male.
It is she who seeks the food when, having laid her one
egg on the sand, she goes abroad, leaving her husband
to keep the egg warm.

The tropic-bird, often called the boatswain, or

22 WHITE SHADOWS

phaeton, also climbs to great heights, and is seldom
found out of these latitudes. He is a beautiful bird,
white, or rose-colored with long carmine tail-feathers,
In the sun these roseate birds are brilliant objects as
they fly jerkily against the bright blue sky, or skiin
over the sea, rising and falling in their search for fish.
I have seen them many times with the frigates, with
whom they are great friends. It would appear that
there is a bond between them; I have never seen the
frigate rob his beautiful companion,

In such idle observations and the vague wonders that
arose from them, the days passed. An interminable
game of cards progressed in the cabin, in which I occa-
sionally took a hand, Gedge and Lying Bill exchanged
reminiscences* McHenry drank steadily. The future
governor of the Marquesas added a galon to his sleeves,
marking his advance to a first lieutenancy in the French
colonial army. He was a very soft, sleek man, a little
worn already, is* black hair a trifle thin, but he was
plump, his skin white as milk, and his jetty beard and
mustache elaborately cared for. He was much before
the mirror, combing and brushing and plucking. Com-
pared to us unkempt wretches, he was as a dandy to a
tramp*

The ice, which was packed in boxes of sawdust on
deck, afforded one cold drink in which to toast the
gallant future governor, and that was the last of it. At
night the Tahitian sailors helped themselves, and we
bade farewell to ice until once more we saw Papeite.

It was no refreshment to reflect that had we dredging
apparatus long enough we could procure from the sea-
bottom buckets of ooze that would have cooled our

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 28

drinks almost to the freezing point* Scientists have
done this. Lying Bill was loth to believe the story
and the explanation, that an icy stream flows from the
Antarctic through a deep valley in the sea-depths.

"It's contrar-iry to nature," he affirmed, "The
depper you go the 'otter it is. In mines the 'eat is
worse the farther down. And 'ow about 'ell?"

I slept on the deck. It was sickeningly hot below.
The squalls had passed, and as we neared Hiva-oa the
sea became glassy smooth, but the leagues-long, lazy
roll of it rocked the schooner like a cradle.

The night before the islands were to come into view
the sea was lit by phosphorescence so magnificently that
even my shipmates, absorbed in ecarte below, called to
one another to view it. The engine took us along at
about six knots, and every gentle wave that broke was a
lamp of loveliness. The wake of the Morning Star
was a milky path lit with trembling fragments of bril-
liancy, and below the surface, beside the rudder, was a
strip of green light from which a billion sparks of fire
shot to the air. Far behind, until the horizon closed
upon the ocean, our wake was curiously remindful of
the boulevard of a great city seen through a mist, the
lights fading in the dim distance, but sparkling still.

I went forward and stood by the cathead. The blue
water stirred by the bow was wonderfully bright, a
mass of coruscating phosphorescence that lighted the
prow like a lamp. It was as if lightning played be-
neath the waves, so luminous, so scintillating the water
and its reflection upon the ship.

The living organisms of the sea were en fete that
night, as though to celebrate my coming to the islands

24 WHITE SHADOWS

of which I had so long dreamed. I smiled at the fancy,
well knowing that the minute pyrodstis, having come to
the surface during the calm that followed the storms,
were showing in that glorious fire the panic caused
among them by the cataclysm of our passing. But the
individual is ever an egoist. It seems to man that the
universe is a circle about him and his affairs. It may
as well seem the same to the pyrocistis.

Far about the ship the waves twinkled in green fire,
disturbed even by the ruffling breeze. I drew up a
bucketful of the water. In the darkness of the cabin it
gave no light until I passed my hand through it. That
was like opening a door into a room flooded by elec-
tricity; the table, the edges of the bunks, the uninter-
ested faces of my shipmates, leaped from the shadows.
Marvels do not seem marvelous to men to live among
them.

I lay long awake on deck, watching the eerily lighted
sea and the great stars that hung low in the sky, and
to my fancy it seemed that the air had changed, that
some breath from the isles before us had softened the
salty tang of the sea-breeze.

Land loomed at daybreak, dark, gloomy, and in-
hospitable. Rain fell drearily as we passed Fatu-hiva,
the first of the Marquesas Islands sighted from the
south. We had climbed from Tahiti, seventeen degrees
south of the equator, to between eleven and ten degrees
south, and we had made a westward of ten degrees.
The Marquesas Islands lay before us, dull spots of
dark rock upon the gray water.

They are not large, any of these islands; sixty or
seventy miles is the greatest circumference. Some of

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 25

^he eleven are quite small, and have no people now.
On the map of the world they are the tiniest pin-pricks
Few dwellers in Europe or America know anything
about them. Most travelers have never heard of them.
No liners touch them; no wire or wireless connects them
with the world. No tourists visit them. Their people
perish. Their trade languishes. In Tahiti, whence
they draw almost all their sustenance, where their laws
are made, and to which they look at the capital of the
world, only a few men, who traded here, could tell me
anything about the Marquesas. These men had only
the vague, exaggerated ideas of the sailor, who goes
ashore once or twice a year and knows nothing of the
native life.

Seven hundred and fifty miles as the frigate flies
separates these islands from Tahiti, but no distance
can measure the difference between the happiness of
Tahiti, the sparkling, brilliant loveliness of that flower-
decked island, and the stern, forbidding aspect of the
Marquesas lifting from the sea as we neared them.
Gone were the laughing vales, the pale-green hills, the
luring, feminine guise of nature, the soft-lapping waves
upon a peaceful, shining shore. The spirit that rides
the thunder had claimed these bleak and desolate islands
for his own.

While the schooner made her way cautiously past
the grim and rocky headlands of Fatu-hiva I was over-
<<hp1r^ *vi.th a feeling of solemnity, of sadness; such
. 'i\ ; <-; . I have known to sweep over an army the
>' :'?'' ',..-;-. ** a battle, when letters are, written to loved
< <,;>'.' , .-' '>mrades entrusted with messages.

i a- ; at, dark shore itself recalls that the history

26 WHITE SHADOWS

of the Marquesas is written in blood, a black spot on the
white race. It is a history of evil wrought by civiliza-
tion, of curses heaped on a strange, simple people by
men who sought to exploit them or to mold them to
another pattern, who destroyed their customs and their
happiness and left them to die, apathetic, wretched,
hardly knowing their own miserable plight.

The French have had their flag over the Marquesas
since 1842. In 1521 Magellan must have passed be-
tween the Marquesas and Paumotas, but he does not
mention them. Seventy-three years later a Spanish
flotilla sent from Callao by Don Garcia Hurtado de
Mendoza, viceroy of Peru, found this island of Fatu-
hiva, and its commander, Mendana, named the group
for the viceroy's lady, Las Islas Marquesas de Mendoza.

One hundred and eighty years passed, and Captain
Cook again discovered the islands, and a Frenchman,
Etienne Marchand, discovered the northern group.
The fires of liberty were blazing high in his home land,
and Marchand named his group the Isles of the Revo-
lution, in celebration of the victories of the French
people, A year earlier an American, Ingraham, had
sighted this same group and given it the name of his
own beloved hero, Washington.

Had not Captain Porter failed to establish Ameri-
can rule in 1813 in the island of Nuka-hiva, which he
called Madison, the Marquesas might have been Ameri-
can. Porter's name, like that of Mendana, is linked
with deeds of cruelty. The Spaniard was without pity;
the American may plead that his killings were reprisals
or measures of safety for himself. Murder of Poly-
nesians was little thought of. Schooners trained their

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 27

i

guns on islands for pleasure or practice, and destroyed
villages with all their inhabitants.

"To put the fear of God in the nigger's hearts," were
the words of many a sanguinary captain and crew.
They did not, of course, mean that literally. They
meant the fear of themselves, and of all whites. They
used the name of God in vain, for after a century and
more of such intermittent effort the Polynesians have
small fear or faith for the God of Christians, despite
continuous labors of missionaries. God seems to have
forgotten them.

The French made the islands their political posses-
sions with little difficulty. The Marquesans had no king
or single chief. There were many tribes and clans,
and it was easy to persuade or compel petty chiefs to
sign declarations and treaties. But it was not easy
to kill the independence of the people, and France
virtually abandoned and retook the islands several times,
her rule fluctuating with political conditions at home.

There were wars, horrible, bloody scenes, when the
clansmen slew the whites and ate them, and the bones
of many a gallant French officer and sea-captain have
moldered where they were heaped after the orgy fol-
lowing victory. But, as always, the white slew his
hundreds to the natives' one, and in time he drove the
devil of liberty and defense of native land from the
heart of the Marquesan,

Before the French achieved this, however, the white
had sowed a crop of deadly evils among the Marquesans
that cut them down faster than war, and left them
desolate, dying, passing to extinction.

As I looked from the deck of the Mormng Star I was

28 WHITE SHADOWS

struck by the fittingness of the scene. Fatu-hiva had
been left behind and Hiva-oa, our destination, was be-
fore us, bleak and threatening. To my eyes it appeared
as it had been in the eyes of the gentler Polynesians
of old time, the abode of demons and of a race of ter-
rible warriors. Hence descended the Marquesans, vi*
kings of the Pacific, in giant canoes, and sprang upon
the fighting men of the Tahitians, the Raiateans and
the Paumotans, slaughtering their hundreds and carry-
ing away scores to feast upon in the High Places.

" Mauri I te popoi a eeite au marere i hiti tovau.
la tari a oe. Tan a rutu mai i hea?
A riitu mai i toerau i hitia!

te au marere i hiti atw a Vaua a rutu i reira
A rutw i toerau roa!

Areare te Jiai o Nu*u-Uva roa.

1 te are e huti te tai a Vavea"

" The spirit of the morning rides the flying vapor that rises

salt from the sea.

Bear on! Bear on! And strike where?
Strike to the northeast !

The vapor flies to the far rim of the Sea of Atolls.
Strike there ! Strike far north !
The sea casts up distant Nuka-Hiva, Land of the War Fleet,

where the waves are towering billows."

This was the ancient chant of the Raiateans, sung
in the old days before the whites came, when they
thought of the deeds that were done by the more-than-
human men who lived on these desolate islands.

CHAPTER IV

Anchorage of Taha-Uka; Exploding Eggs, and his engagement as valet;
inauguration of the new governor; dance on the palace lawn.

AS we approached Hiva-oa the giant height of
Temetiu slowly lifted four thousand feet above
the sea, swathed in blackest clouds. Below,
purple-black valleys came one by one into view, murky
caverns of dank vegetation. Towering precipices,
seamed and riven, rose above the vast welter of the
gray sea.

Slowly we crept into the wide Bay of Traitors and
felt our way into the anchorage of Taha-Uka, a long
and narrow passage between frowning cliffs, spray-
dashed walls of granite lashed fiercely by the sea. All
along the bluffs were cocoanut-palms, magnificent, wav-
ing their green fronds in the breeze. Darker green,
the mountains towered above them, and far on the
higher slopes we saw wild goats leaping from crag to
crag and wild horses running in the upper valleys.

A score or more of white ribbons depended from the
lofty heights, and through the binoculars I saw them to
be waterfalls. They Were like silver cords swaying
in the wind, and when brought nearer by the glasses,
I saw that some of them were heavy torrents while
others, gauzy as wisps of chiffon, hardly veiled the black
walls behind them.

The whole island dripped. The air was saturated,
the decks were wet, and along the shelves of basalt that

29

30 WHITE SHADOWS

jutted from tHe cliffs a hundred blow-holes spouted and
roared. In ages of endeavor the ocean had made cham-
bers in the rock and cut passages to the top, through
which, at every surge of the pounding waves, the water
rushed and rose high in the air.

Iron-bound, the mariner calls this coast, and the word
makes one see the powerful, severe mold of it. Molten
rock fused in subterranean fires and cast above the sea
cooled into these ominous ridges and stern unyielding
walls.

There upon the deck I determined not to leave until
I had lived for a time amid these wild scenes. My
intention had been to voyage with the Morning Star,
returning with her to Tahiti, but a mysterious voice
called to me from the dusky valleys. I could not leave
without penetrating into those abrupt and melancholy
depths of forest, without endeavoring, though ver so
feebly, to stir the cold brew of legend and tale fast dis-
appearing in stupor and forgetfulness.

Lying Bill protested volubly; he liked company and
would regret my contribution to the expense account,
Gedge joined him in serious opposition to the plan,
urging that I would not be able to find a place to live,
that there was no hotel, club, lodging, or food for a
stranger. But I was determined to stay, though I must
sleep under a breadfruit-tree. As I was a mere roamer,
with no calendar or even a watch, I had but to fetch
my few belongings ashore and be a Marquesas These
belongings I gathered together, and finding me obdu-
rate, Lying Bill reluctantly agreed to set them on the
beach.

On either side of TaM-Uka inlet are landing-places,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 31

one in front of a store, the other leading only to the
forest. These are stairways cut in the basaltic wall of
the cliffs, and against them the wares pound continu-
ously. The beach of Taha-Uka was a mile from where
we lay and not available for traffic, but around a shoul-
der of the bluffs was hidden the tiny bay of Atuona,
where goods could be landed.

While we discussed this, around those jutting rocks
shot a small out-rigger canoe, frail and hardly large
enough to hold the body of a slender Marquesan boy
who paddled it. About his middle he wore a red and
yellow pareu, and his naked body was like a small and
perfect statue as he handled his tiny craft. When
he came over the side I saw that he was about thir' .^
years old and very handsome, tawny in complexion, ? \ h
regular features and an engaging smile.

His name, he said, was Nakohu, which means j ,>
ploding Eggs. This last touch was all that was nee n J ;
without further ado I at once engaged him as valet. A.
the period of my stay in the Marquesas, His di ! l; >,
would be to help in conveying my luggage ashorr, V
aid me in the mysfteries of cooking breadfruit and ,-:i*h
other edibles as I might discover, and to converse '<i*h
me in Marquesan. In return, he was to profit bj !:
honor of being attached to my person, by an option <n
such small articles as I might leave behind on my
parture, and by the munificent salary of about five c &
a day. His gratitude and delight knew no bounc**.

Hardly had the arrangement been made, when a
whaleboat rowed by Marquesans followed in the wake
of the canoe, and a tall, rangy Frenchman climbed
aboard the Morning Star. He was Monsieur Andre

82 WHITE SHADOWS

Bauda, agent special, commissaire, postmaster; a beau
sabreur, veteran of many campaigns in Africa, dressed
in khaki, medals on his chest, full of gay words and
fierce words, drinking his rum neat, and the pink of
courtesy. He had come to examine the ship's papers,
and to receive the new governor.

A look of blank amazement appeared upon the round
face of M. L'Hermier des Plantes when it was conveyed
to him that this solitary whalehoat had hrought a soli-
tary white to welcome him to his seat of government,
He had been assiduously preparing for his reception for
many hours and was immaculately dressed in white
duck, his legs in high, brightly-polished boots, his two
stripes in velvet on his sleeve, and his military cap shin-
ing. He knew no more about the Marquesas than I,
having come directly via Tahiti from France, and he
was plainly dumfounded and dismayed. Was all that
Render care of his whiskers to be wasted on scenery?

However, after a drink or two he resignedly took his
Belongings, and dropping into the wet and dirty boat
dth Bauda, he lifted an umbrella over his gaudy cap
<ind disappeared in the rain.

" *E 's got a bloomin' nice place to live in," remarked
Lying Bill "Now, if 'e 'd a-been 'ere when I come
Vd a-seen something! I come 'ere thirty-five years
ago when I was a young kid. I come with a skipper
and I was the only crew. Me and him, and I was
eighteen, and the boat was the Victor. I In ed 'ere and
about for ten years. Them was the days for a little
excitement. There was a chief, Mohuho, who 'd a-killed
me if I 'ad n't been tapvfd by Vaekehu, the queen, wot
took a liking to me, me being a kid, and white. I've

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 33

seen Mohuho shoot three natives from cocoanut-trees
just to try a new gun. 'E was a bad *un, 5 e was. There
was something doing every day, them days, God, wot
it is to be young!"

A little later Lying Bill, Ducat, and I, with my new
valet's canoe in the wake of our boat, rounded the cliffs
that had shut off our view of Atuona Valley. It lay
before us, a long and narrow stretch of sand behind a
.foaming and heavy surf; beyond, a few scattered
wooden buildings among palm and banian-trees, and
above, the ribbed gaunt mountains shutting in a deep
and gloomy ravine. It was a lonely, beautiful place,
ominous, melancholy, yet majestic.

"Bloody Hiva-oa," this island was called. Long af-
ter the French had subdued by terror the other isles of
the group, Hiva-oa remained obdurate, separate, and
untamed* It was the last stronghold of brutishness, of
cruel chiefs and fierce feuds, of primitive and terrible
customs. And of "the man-eating isle *of Hiva-oa"
Atuona Valley was the capital.

We landed on the beach dry-shod, through the skill
of the boat-steerer and the strength of the Tahitian
sailors, who carried us through the surf and set my
luggage among the thick green vines that met the tide.
We were dressed to call upon the governor, whose in-
auguration was to take place that afternoon, and leav-
ing my belongings in care of the faithful Exploding
Eggs, we set off up the valley.

The rough road, seven or eight feet wide, was raised
on rocks above the jungle and was bordered by giant
banana plants and cocoanuts. At this season all was
a swamp below us, the orchard palms standing

34 WHITE SHADOWS

feet deep in water and mud, but their long green fronds
and the darker tangle of wild growth on the steep inoun-
tain-sides were beautiful.

The government house was set half a mile farther
on in the narrowing ravine, and on the way we passed
a desolate dwelling, squalid, set in the marsh, its bat-
tered verandas and open doors disclosing a wretched
mingling of native bareness with poverty-stricken
European fittings. On the tottering veranda sat a
ragged Frenchman, bearded and shaggy-haired, and be-
side him three girls as blonde as German Madchen&t
Their white delicate faces and blue eyes, in such sur-
roundings, struck one like a blow. The eldest was a
girl of eighteen years, melancholy, though pretty, wear-
ing like the others a dirty gown and no shoes or stock-
ings. The man was in soiled overalls, and reeling
drunk.

"That is Baufre," said Ducat. "He is always drunk
He married the daughter of an Irish trader, a former
officer in the British Indian Light Cavalry. Baufre
was a sous-offider in the French forces here. There
is no native blood in those girls. What will become of
them, I wonder?"

A few hundred yards further on was the palace,
It was a wooden house of four or five rooms, with an
ample veranda, {surrounded by an acre of ground forced
in. The sward was the brilliantly green, luxuriant wild
growth that in these islands covers every foot of earth
surface. Cocoanuts and ^mango-trees rose from this
volunteer lawn, and under them a dozen rosebushes,
thick with excessively fragrant bloom. Pineapples
grew against the palings, and a bed of lettuce flourished

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 35

in the rear beside a tiny pharmacy, a kitchen, and a
shelter for servants.

On the spontaneous verdure before the veranda three
score Marquesans stood or squatted, the men in shirts
and overalls and the women in tunics. Their skins,
not brown nor red nor yellow, but tawny like that of
the white man deeply tanned by the sun, reminded me
again that these people may trace back their ancestry
to the Caucasian cradle. The hair of the women was
adorned with gay flowers or the leaves of the false coffee
bush. Their single garments of gorgeous colors clung
to their straight, rounded bodies, their dark eyes were
soft and full of light as the eyes of deer, and their
features, clean-cut and severe, were of classic lines.

The men, tall and massive, seemed awkwardly con-
stricted in ill-fitting, blue cotton overalls such as Ameri-
can laborers wear over street-clothes. Their huge
bodies seemed about to break through the flimsy bind-
ings, and the carriage of their striking heads made
the garments ridiculous. Most of them had fairly regu-
lar features on a large "scale, their mouths wide, and
their lips full and sensual. They wore no hats or orna-
ments, though it has ever been the custom of all Poly-
nesians to put flowers and wreaths upon their heads.

Men and women were waiting with a kind of apathetic
resignation; melancholy and unresisting despair seemed
the only spirit left to them.

On the veranda with the governor and Bauda were
several whites, one a French woman to whom we were
presented* Madame Bapp, fat and red-faced, in a
tight silk gown over corsets, was twice the size of her
husband, a dapper, small man with huge mustaches, a

36 WHITE SHADOWS

paper collar to his ears, and a fiery, red-velvet cravat,

On a t&ble were bottles of absinthe and champagne,
and several demijohns of red wine stood on the floor*
All our company attacked the table freight and drank
the warm champagne.

A seamy-visaged Frenchman, Pierre Guillitoue, the
village butcher a philosopher and anarchist, he told
me rapped with a bottle on the veranda railing. The
governor, in every inch of gold lace possible, made a
gallant figure as he rose and faced the people. His
whiskers were aglow with dressing. The ceremony be-
gan with an address by a native, HaabunaL

Intrepreted by Guillitoue, Haabunai said that the
Marquesans were glad to have a new governor, a wise
man who would cure their ills, a just ruler, and a friend;
then speaking directly to his own people, he praised
extravagantly the new-comer, so that Guillitoue choked
in his translation, and ceased, and mixed himself a
glass of absinthe and water.

The governor replied briefly in French. He said
that he had come in their interest; that he would not
cheat them or betray them; that he would make them
well if they were sick. The French flag was their
flag; the French people loved them. The Marquesans
listened without interest, as if he spoke .of some one
in Tibet who wanted to sell a green elephant.

In the South Seas a meeting out-of-doors means a
dance. The Polynesians have ever made this universal
human expression of the rhythmic principle of motion
the chief evidence of emotion, and particularly of ela-
tion. Civilization has all but stifled it in many islands.
Christianity has made it a sin. It dies hard, for it is

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 37

the basic outlet of strong natural feeling, and the great
group entertainment of these peoples.

The speeches done, the governor suggested that the
national spirit be interpreted to him in pantomine.

"They must be enlivened with alcohol or they will
not move," said Guillitoue.

"Mon dieuF he replied. It is the Tolies Bergere'
over again! Give them wine!"

Bauda ordered Flag, the native gendarme, and Song
of the Nightingale, a prisoner, to carry a demijohn
of Bordeaux wine to the garden. With two glasses
they circulated the claret until each Marquesan had
a pint or so. Song of the Nightingale was a middle-
aged savage, with a wicked, leering face, and whiskers
from his ears to the corners of his mouth, surely a strange
product of the Marquesan race, none of whose men will
permit any hair to grow on lip or cheek. While Song
circulated the wine M. Bauda enlightened me as to the
crime that had made him prisoner. He was serving
eighteen months for selling cocoanut brandy.

When the cask was emptied the people began the
dance. Three rows were formed, one of women be-
tween two of men, in Indian file facing the veranda.
Haabunai and Song of the Nightingale brought forth
the drums. These were about four feet high, barbaric
instruments of skin stretched over hollow logs, and the
"Boom-Boom" that came from them when they were
struck by the hands of the two strong men was thrilling
and strange.

The dance was formal, slow, and melancholy.
Ha* '<,><" the order of it, shouting at the top of

his >. ,:,*} women, with blue and scarlet Chinese

38 WHITE SHADOWS

shawls of silk tied about their hips, moved stiffly, with-
out interest or spontaneous spirit, as though constrained
and indifferent. Though the dances were licentious,
they conveyed no meaning and expressed no emotion.
The men gestured hy rote, appealing mutely to the
spectators, so that one might fancy them orators whose
voices failed to reach one. There was no laughter, not
even a smile.

"Give them another demijohn!" said the governor.

The juice of the grape dissolved melancholy. When
the last of it had flowed the dance was resumed. The
women began a spirited danse du venire. Their eyes
now sparkled, their bodies were lithe and graceful
McHenry rushed on to the lawn and taking his place
among them copied their motions in antics that set
them roaring with the hearty roars of the conquered
at the asininity of the conquerors. They tried to con-
tinue the dance, but could not for merriment.

One of the dancers advanced toward the veranda and
in a ceremonious way kissed the governor upon the lips.
That young executive was much surprised, but returned
the salute and squeezed her tiny waist. All the com-
pany laughed at this, except Madame Bapp, who
glared angrily and exclaimed, "Coquinef which means
hussy.

The Marquesans have no kisses in their native love-
making, but smell one or rub noses, as do the Eskimo.
Whites, however, have taught kisses in all their variety.

The governor had the girl drink a glass of champagne.
.She was perhaps sixteen years old, a charming girl,
smiling, simple, and lovely. Her skin, like that of all
Marquesans, was olive, not brown like the Hawaiians*

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 39

or yellow like the Chinese, but like that of whites grown
dark in the sun. She had black, streaming hair, sloe
eyes, and an arch expression. Her manner was art-
lessly ingratiating, and her sweetness of disposition was
not marked by hauteur. When I noticed that her arm
was tattoed, she slipped off her dress and sat naked to
the waist to show all her adornment.

There was an inscription of three lines stretching
from her shoulder to her wrist, the letters nearly an
inch in length, crowded together in careless inartistry.
The legend was as follows:

"TAHIAKEANA TEIKIMOEATIPANIE PAHAKA AVII
ANIPOENUIMATILAILI
TETUATONOEINUHAtALIILII"

These were the names given her at birth, and tattooed
in her childhood. She was called, she said, Tahiakeana,
Wearer of Mats.

Seeing her success among us and noting the cham-
pagne, her companions began to thrust forward on to
the veranda to share her luck. This angered the gov-
ernor, who thought his dignity assailed. At Bauda's
order, the gendarme and Song of the Nightingale dis-
missed the visitors, put McIIenry to sleep under a tree,
and escorted the new executive and me to Bauda's home
on the beach.

There in his board shanty, six by ten feet, we ate our
first dinner in the islands, while the wind surged through
swishing palm-leaves outside, and nuts fell now and
then upon the iron roof with the resounding crash of
bombs. It was a plain, but plentiful, meal of canned
foods, served by the tawny gendarme and the wicked

40 WHITE SHADOWS

Song, whose term of punishment for distributing brandy
seemed curiously suited to his crime.

At midnight I accompanied a happy governor to his
palace, which had one spare bedroom, sketchily fur-
nished. During the night the slats of my bed gave
way with a dreadful din, and I woke to find the gov-
ernor in pajamas of rose-colord silk, with pistol in
hand, shedding electric rays upon me from a battery
lamp. There was anxiety in his manner as he said :

"You never can tell. A chief's son tried to kill my
predecessor. I do not know these Marquesans. We
are few whites here. And, mon dieu! the guardian of
the palace is himself a native 1"

CHAPTER V

First night in Atuona valley; sensational arrival of the Golden Bed; Titi-
huti's tattooed legs.

IT was necessary to find at once a residence for my
contemplated stay in Atuona, for the schooner
sailed on the morrow, and my brief glimpse of
the Marquesans had whetted my desire to live among
them- I would not accept the courteous invitation of
the governor to stay at the palace, for officialdom never
knows its surroundings, and grandeur makes for no
confidence from the lowly.

Lam Kai Oo, an aged Chinaman whom I encountered
at the trader's store, came eagerly to my rescue with
an offered lease of his deserted store and hakeshop^
From Canton he had been brought in his youth by t^e
labor bosses of western America to help build the tran
continental railway, and later another agency had %p
him down in Taha-Uka to grow cotton for John Hai I
He saw the destruction of that plantation, escaped thf
plague of opium, and with his scant savings made him*
self a petty merchant in Atuona, Now he was old
and liad retired up the valley to the home he had long
established there beside his copra furnace and his shrine
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

He led me to the abandoned shack, a long room,
tumbledown, moist, festooned with cobwebs, the coun-
ters and benches black with reminiscences of twenty

41

42 WHITE SHADOWS

thousand tradings and Chinese meals. The windows
were but half a dozen bars, and the heavy vapors of a
cruel past hung about the sombre walls. Though opium
had long been contraband, its acrid odor permeated the
worn furnishings. Here with some misgivings I pre-
pared to spend my second night in Hiva-oa.

I left the palace late, and found the shack by its loca-
tion next the river on the main road. Midnight had
come, no creature stirred as I opened the door. The
few istars in the black velvet pall of the sty seemed to
ray out positive darkness, and the spirit of Po, the
Marquesan god of evil, breathed from the unseen, shud-
dering forest. I tried to damn my mood, but found
no profanity utterable. Rain began to fall, and I
pushed into the den.

A glimpse of the dismal interior did not cheer me.

I locked the door with the great iron key, spread my

mat, and blew out the lantern. Soon from out the

vpge brick oven where for decades Lam Kai Oo had

ked his bread there stole scratching, whispering forms

at slid along the slippery floor and leaped about the

xts where many long since dead had sat. I lay quiet

th a will to sleep, but the hair stirred on my scalp.

* The darkness was incredible, burdensome, Kke a

/eight. The sound of the wind and the rain in the

breadfruit forest and the low roar of the torrent became

only part of the silence in which those invisible presences

crept and rustled. Try as I would I could recall no

good deed of mine to shine for me in, that shrouded

confine. The Celtic vision of my forefathers, that

strange mixture of the terrors of Druid and soggarth,

danced on the creaking floor, and witch-lights gleamed

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 4*

on ceiling and timbers. I thought to dissolve it all
with a match, but whether all awake or partly asleep,
I had no strength to reach it.

Then something clammily touched my face, and with
a bound I had the lantern going. No living thing
moved in the circle of its rays. My flesh crawled on
my bones, and sitting upright on my mat I chanted
aloud from the Bible in French with Tahitian parallels.
The glow of a pipe and the solace of tobacco aided the
rhythm of the prophets in dispelling the ghosts of the
gloom, but never shipwrecked mariner greeted the dawn
with greater joy than I.

In its pale light I peered through the barred windows
the windows of the Chinese the world over and saw
four men who had set down a coffin to rtest themselves
and smoke a cigarette. They sat on the rude box .cov-
ered with a black cloth and passed the pandanus-
wrapped tobacco about. Naked, except for loin-cloths,
their tawny skins gleaming wet in the gray light, rings of
tattooing about their eyes, they made a strange picture
against the jungle growth.

They were without fire for they had got into a deep
place crossing the stream and had wet their matches. I
handed a box through the bars, and by reckless use of
the few words of Marquesan I recalled, and bits of
French they knew, helped out by scraps of Spanish one
had gained from the Chilean murderer who milked the
cows for the German trader, I learned that the corpse
was that of a woman of sixty years, whose agonies had
been soothed by the ritual of the Catholic church. The
bearers were taking her to Calvary cemetery on the hill.

Their cigarettes smoked, they rose and took up the

44 WHITE SHADOWS

long poles on which the coffin was swung. Moving with
the tread of panthers, firm, noiseless, and graceful, they
disappeared into the forest and I was left alone with the
morning sun and the glistening leaves of the rain-wet
breadfruit-trees.

On the beach an hour later I met Gedge, who asked
me with a quizzical eye how I had enjoyed my first
night among the Kanakas, I replied that I had seldom
passed such a night, spoke glowingly of the forest and
the stream, and said that I was still determined to re-
main behind when the schooner sailed.

"Well, if you will stay/' said he, and the trader's look
came into nis eye, "I Ve got just the thing you want.
,You don't want to lie on a mat where the thousand-legs
can get you and if they get you, you die. You want
to live right. Now listen to me; I got the best brass
bed ever a king slept on. Double thickness, heavy brass
bed, looks like solid gold. Springs that would hold the
schooner, double-thick mattress, sheets *and pillows all
embroidered like it belonged to a duchess. Fellow was
going to be married that I brought it for, but now he '$
lying up there in Calvary in a bed they dug for him.
I '11 let you have it cheap three hundred francs. It 's
worth double. What do you say?"

A brass bed, a golden bed in the cannibal islands!

"It 's a go/' I said.

On the deck of the Morning Star I beheld the pack-
ing-cases brought up from the hold, and my new pur-
chase with all its parts and appurtenances loaded in a
ship's boat, with the iron box that held my gold. So I
arrived in Atuona for the second time, high astride the
sewed-up mattress on top of the metal parts, and so

IN THE SOUTH SEAS* 45

deftly did the Tahitians handle the oars that, though we
fode the surf right up to the creeping jungle flowers
that met the tide on Atuona beach, I was not wet except
by spray.

Our arrival was watched by a score of Marquesan
chiefs who had been summoned by Bauda for the pur-
pose, as he told me, of being urged to thrash the tax-tree
more vigorously. The meeting adjourned instantly,
and they hastened down from the frame building that
housed the government offices. Their curiosity could
not be restrained. A score of eager hands stripped the
coverings from the brass bed, and exposed the glittering
head and foot pieces in the brilliant sunlight. Excla-
mations of amazement and delight greeted the marvel.
This was another wonder from the white men's isles, in-
dicative of wealth and royal taste.

From all sides other natives came Hastening. My
brass bed and I were the center of a gesticulating circle,
dark eyes rolled with excitement and naked shoulder
jostled shoulder. Three chiefs, tattooed and haughty,
personally erected the bed, and when I disclosed the
purpose of the mattress, placed it in position. Every
woman present now pushed forward and begged the
favor of being allowed to bounce upon it. It became a
diversion attended with high honor. Controversies
meantime raged about the bed. Many voices estimated
the number of mats that would be necessary to equal the
thickness of the mattress, but none found a comparison
worthy of its softness and elasticity.

In the midst of this melee one woman, whose eyes and
facial contour betrayed Chinese blood, but who was very
eomely and neat, pushed forward and pointing to the

46 WHITE SHADOWS

glittering center of attraction repeated over and over,

"Kisskisskissa? Kisskisskissa?"

For awhile I was disposed to credit her with a sud-
den affection for me, but soon resolved her query into
the French "Qu'est-ce que e'est que ca? What is that?"

She was Apporo, wife of Puhei, Great Fern, she said,
and she owned a house in which her father, a Chinaman,
had recently died. This house she earnestly desired to
give me in exchange for the golden hed, and we struck a
bargain. I was to live in the house of Apporo and, on
departing, to leave her the bed. Great Fern, her hus-
band, was called to seal the compact. He was a giant
in stature, dark skinned, with a serene countenance and
crisp hair. They agreed to clean the house thoroughly
and to give me possession at once.

They were really mad to have the bed, in all its shiny
golden beauty, and once the arrangement was made
they could hardly give over examining it, crawling be-
neath it, smoothing the mattress and fingering the
springs. They shook it, poked it, patted it, and finally
Apporo, filled with feminine pride, arrogated to herself
the sole privilege of bouncing upon it.

Lam Kai Oo wailed his loss of a tenant.

"You savee thlat house belong lepY* he argued ear-
nestly. "My sto'e littee dirty, but I fixum. You go
thlat lep' house, bimeby flinger dlop, toe cllop, nose he
go." He grimaced frightfully, and indicated in panto-
mime the ravages of leprosy upon the human form*

His appeal was in vain. The Golden Bed, upraised
on the shoulders of four stalwart chiefs, began its trium-
phal progress up the valley road. Behind it officiously
walked Exploding Eggs, puffed up with importance, re-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 4T

garded on all sides .with respect as Tueni OM Kiki>
Keeper of the Golden Bed, but jostled for position by
Apporo, envied of women. Behind them up the rough
road hastened the rest of the village, eager to see the in-
stallation of the marvel in its new quarters, and I fol-
lowed the barbaric procession leisurely,

My new residence was a mile from the beach, and off
the main thoroughfare, though this mattered little.
The roads built decades ago by the French are so ruined
and neglected that not a thousand feet of them remain in
all the islands. No wheel supports a vehicle, not even a
wheelbarrow. Trails thread the valleys and climb the
hills, and traffic is by horse and human.

My Golden Bed, lurching precariously in the narrow
path, led me through tangled jungle growth to the first
sight of my new home, a small house painted bright blue
and roofed with corrugated iron. Set in the midst of
the forest, it was raised from the ground on a paepae,
a great platform made of basalt stones, black, smooth
and big, the very flesh of the Marquesas Islands. Every
house built by a native since their time began has been
set on a paepae, and mine had been erected in days be-
yond the memory of any living man. It was fifty feet
broad and as long, raised eight feet from the earth,
which was reached by worn steps.

Above the small blue-walled house the rocky peak of
Temetiu rose steeply, four thousand feet into the air,
its lower reaches clothed in jungle-vines, and trees, its
summit dark green under a clear sky, but black when the
sun was hidden. Most of the hours of the day it was
but a dim shadow above a belt of white clouds, but up to
its mysterious heights a broken ridge climbed sheer from

48 WHITE SHADOWS

the valley, and upon it browsed the wild boar and the
crag-loving goat.

Beside the house the river brawled through a green-
wood of bread-fruit-, cocoanut-, vi-apple-, mango- and
lime-trees. The tropical heat distilled from their leaves
a drowsy woodland odor which filled the two small white*
washed rooms, and the shadows of the trees, falling
through the wide unglassed windows, made a sun-flecked
pattern on the black stone floor. This was the House
of Lepers, now rechristened the House of the Golden
Bed, which was to be my home through the unkncwn
days before me.

The next day I watched the Morning Star lift hex
sails and move slowly out of the Bay of Traitors into the
open sea, with' less regret than I have ever felt in that
moment of wistfulness which attends the departure of a
sailing-ship. Exploding Eggs, at my side, read cor-
rectly my returning eyes. "Kaoha!" he said, with a
wide smile of welcome, and with him and Vai, my next-
door neighbor, I returned gladly to my paepae.

Vai, or in English, Water, was a youth of twenty
years, a dandy; on ordinary occasions naked, except for
the pareu about his loins, but on Sundays or when court-
ing rejoicing in the gayest of Europeanized clothes.
He lived near ine in a, small house on the river-bank with
his mother and sister. All were of a long line of chiefs,
and all marvelously large and handsome.

The mother, Titihuti, would have been beloved of the
ancient artists who might have drawn her for an Ama-
zon. I have never seen another woman of such superb
carriage. Her hair was blood-red, her brow lofty, and

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 49

an indescribable air of majesty and pride spoke elo-
quently of her descent from fathers and mothers of
power. She had wonderful legs, statuesque in mold,
and tattooed from ankles to thigh in most amazing pat-
terns. To a Marquesan of her generation the tattooed
legs of a shapely woman were the highest reach of art.

Titihuti was very proud of her legs. Though she was
devout Catholic and well aware of the contempt of the
church for such vanities, religion could not entirely ef-
face her pride, During the first few days she passed
and repassed my cabin in her walks about her household
duties, lifting her tuiuc each day a little higher. Her
vanity would no doubt have continued this gradual
course, but that one day I came upon her in the river en-
tirely nude. Her gratification was unconcealed ; naively
she displayed the innumerable whirls and arabesques of
her adornment for my compliments, and thereafter she
wore only a pareu when at home, entirely dropping alien
standards of modesty and her gown.

She said that people came from far valleys to see her
legs, and I could readily believe it. It was so with the
leg of the late Queen Vaekehu, a leg so perfect in mold
and so elaborately and artistically inked that it distin-
guished her even more than her rank. Casual whites,
especially, considered it a curiosity, and offended her
majesty by laying democratic hands upon the master-
piece. I had known a man or two who had seen the
queen at home, and who testified warmly to the har-
monious blending of flesh color with the candle-nut soot.
Among my effects in the House of the Golden Bed I
had a photograph showing the multiplicity and fine exe-

SO WHITE SHADOWS

cution of the designs upon Vaekehu's leg, yet comparing
it with the two realities of Titihuti I could not yield the
palm to the queen.

The legs of Titihuti were tattooed from toes to ankles
with a net-like pattern, and from the ankles to the waist
line, where the design terminated in a handsome girdle,;
there were curves, circles and filigree, all in accord, all!
part of a harmonious whole, and most pleasing to tie
eye. The pattern upon her feet was much like thatol
sandals or high mocassins, indicating a former use of leg.
coverings in a cold climate. Titihuti herself, after an
anxious inch-for-inch matching of picture and living
form, said complacently that her legs were meitai m>
which meant that she would not have hesitated to enter
her own decorations in heauty competition with those of
Vaekehu.

Kake, her daughter, had been christened for her
mother's greatest charm, for her name means Tattooed
to the Loins, though there was not a tattoo mark upon
her. She was a beautiful, stately girl of nineteen 01
twenty, married to a devoted native, to whom, shortly
after my arrival, she presented his own living miniature,
I was the startled witness of the birth of this babe, the
delight of his father's heart.

My neighbors and I had the same bathing hour, soon
after daylight, and usually chose the same pool in the
clear river. Kake was lying on a mat on their paepat
when I passed one morning, and when I said "Kaoha"
to her she did not reply. Her silence caused me to
mount the stairway, and at that moment the child wai
born.

Half an hour later she joined me in the river, and

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 51

laughing back at me over her shoulder as she plunged
through the water, called that she would give the child
my name. That afternoon she was sitting on my
paepae, a bewitching sight as she held the suckling to
her breast and crooned of his forefather's deeds before
the white had gripped them.

CHAPTER VI

Visit of Chief Seventh Man Who is So Angry He Wallows in the Mirej
journey to Vait-hua on Tahuata island; fight with the devil-fish; story
of a cannibal feast and the two who escaped.

'fTT^HE Iron Fingers That Make Words, 5 ' the Mar-

I quesans called my typewriter. Such a wonder
JL had never before been beheld in the islands, and
its fame spread far. From other valleys and even from
distant islands the curious came in threes and fours,
They watched the strange thing write their names and
carefully carried away the bits of paper.

"Aue!" they cried as I showed them my speed, which
would be a shame to a typist.

Chiefs especially were my visitors, thinking it proper
to their estate and to mine that they should call upon me
and invite me to their seats of government.

So it happened that one morning as I sat on my
paepae eating a breakfast of roasted breadfruit pre-
pared for me by Exploding Eggs, my naked skin en-
joying the warmth of the sun and my ears filled with the
bubbling laughter of the brook, I beheld two stately
visitors approaching. Exploding Eggs named them to
me as they came up the trail.

Both were leading chiefs of the islands. Katu, Piece
of Tattooing, of Hekeani, led the way. His severe and
dignified face was a dark blue in color. His eyes alone
were free from imbedded indigo ink. They gleamed

62

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 53

like white clouds in a blue sky, but their glance was mild
and kindly. Sixty years of age, he still walked with
upright grace, only the softened contours of his face be-
traying that he was well in his manhood when his valley
was still given over to tribal warfares, orgies, and canni-
balism.

Behind him came Neo Afitu Atrien, of Vait-hua, a
stocky brown man with a lined face, stubby mustache,
and brilliant, intelligent eyes. He mounted the steps,
shook hands heartily, and poured out his informed soul
in English.

"Johnny, I spik Ingrish. You Irishman, You got
*O/ before name. I know you got tipwrite can make
machine do pen. I know Panama Canal. How is
Teddy and Gotali?"

I assured the chief that both Roosevelt and Goethals
were well at last account, and he veered to other topics.

"Before time, come prenty whaleship my place/ 9 he
said. "I know geograffy, mappee, grammal I know
Egyptee, Indee, all country; I know Bufflobillee. Be-
fore time, whaleship come America for take water and
wood. Stay two, t'ree week. Every night sailor come
ashore catchee girls take ship. Prenty rum, biskit,
molassi, good American tobbacee. Now all finish.
Whaleship no more. That is not good."

His name means The Seventh Man Who Is So Angry
He Wallows In The Mire. "Neo" means all but the
number, and for so short a word to be translated by so
detailed a statement would indicate that there were many
Marquesans whose anger tripped them. Else such a
word had hardly been born.

I showed the chiefs the marvels of my typewriter, dis-

54 WHITE SHADOWS

played to their respectful gaze the Golden Bed, and
otherwise did the honors. As they departed, Neo said
earnestly,

" You come see me you have my house. You like, you
bring prenty rum, keep warm if rain/'

"A wicked man/' said Exploding Eggs in Marquesan
when the trail lay empty before us. "One time he drink
much rum, French gendarme go to arrest him, he
bite " With an eloquent gesture my valet indicated
that Neo's teeth had removed in its entirety the nose of
the valiant defender of morals. "No good go see him/'
he added with finality.

However, the prospect intrigued my fancy, and find-
ing a few days later that Ika Vaikoki, whose discerning
parents had named him Ugh ! Dried-up Stream ! was
voyaging toward Vait-hua in a whaleboat, I offered him
ten francs and two litres of rum to take me. Remember-
ing Neo's suggestion, I took also two other bottles of rum.

While our whaleboat shot across the Bordelaise Chan-
nel pursued by a brisk breeze, Ugh ! a wisp of a man of
fifty, held the helm. He was for all the world like a
Malay pirate; I have seen his double steering a proa
off the Borneo coast, slim, high-cheeked, with a sashful
of saw-like knives. Ugh! had no weapon, but his eye
was a small flaming coal that made me thankful canni-
balism is a thing of the past. He had been carried
through the surf to his perch upon the stern because one
of his legs was useless for walking, but once he grasped
the tiller, he was a seaman of skill.

The oarsmen wore turbans of pink, blue, and white
muslin to protect their heads from the straight rays of
the white sun. Bright-colored pareus were about their

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 55

loins, and several wore elastic sleeve-holders as orna-
ments on tawny arms and legs, while one, the son of
Ugh! sported earrings, great hoops of gold that flashed
in the sunshine. With their dark skins, gleaming eyes,
and white teeth, they were a brilliant picture against the
dazzling blue of the sea.

Straight across the channel we steered for Hana
Hevane, a little bay and valley guarded by sunken coral
rocks over which the water foamed in white warning*
Two of the men leaped out into the waves and hunted
on these rocks for squids, while we beached the boat on a
shore uninhabited by any living creature but rats,
lizards, and centipedes.

Several small octopi were soon brought in, and one of
the men placed them on some boulders where the tide had
left pools of water, and cleaned them of their poison.
He rubbed them on the stone exactly as a washerwoman
handles a flannel garment, and out of them cam^ a lather
as though he had soaped them. Suds, bubbles, aid froth
one would have said a laundress had been at work
there. He dipped them often in a pool of salt water,
and not until they would yield no more suds did he gitce
each a final rinsing and throw it on the fire made on the
beach.

Suddenly a shout broke my absorption in this task.
The son of Ugh ! with the gold earrings, waving his arms
from amidst the surf on the reef, called to me to come
and see a big feke. As his companions were dancing
about and yelling madly, I left the laundrying of the
small sea-devils and splashed two hundred yards through
the lagoon to the scene of excitement.

Four of the crew had attacked a giant devil-fish, which

56 WHITE SHADOWS

was hidden in a cave in the rocks. From the gloom it
darted out its long arms and tried to seize the strange
creatures that menaced it. The naked boatsmen, danc-
ing just out of reach of the writhing tentacles, struck at
them with long knives. As they cut off pieces of the
curling, groping gristle, I thought I heard a horrible
groan from the cave, almost like the voice of a human in
agony. I stayed six feet away, for I had no knife and
no relish for the game.

Four of the long arms had been severed at the ends
when suddenly the octopus came out of his den to fight
for his life. He was a reddish-purple globe of horrid
flesh, horned all over, with a head not unlike an ele-
phant's, but with large, demoniacal eyes, bitter, hating
eyes that roved from one to another of us as if selecting
his prey. Eight arms, some shorn of their suckers,
stretched out ten feet toward us.

The Marquesans retreated precipitately, and I led
them, laughing nervously, but not joyously* The son-
of Ugh! stopped first.

ffr a! Ta! Ta! Tar he cried. "Are we afraid of that
ugly beast? I have killed many. Pakekat We will
/eat him, too!"

He turned with the others and advanced toward the
feke, shouting scornful names at him, threatening him
with death and being eaten, warning him that the sooner
he gave up, the quicker ended his agony. But the devil-
fish was not afraid. His courage shamed mine. I was
behind the barrier of the boatsmen, but once in the throes
of the fight a slimy arm passed between two of them and
wound itself around my leg. I screamed out, for it was
icy cold and sent a sickening weakness all through me,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 57

jo that I could not have swum a dozen feet with it upon
lie. One of the natives cut it off, and still it clung to
my bloodless skin until I plucked it away.

The son of Ugh! had two of the great arms about him
at one time, but his companions hacked at them until he
was free. Then, regardless of the struggles of the
maimed devil, they closed in on him and stabbed his
head and body until he died. During these last mo-
ments I was amazed and sickened to hear the octopus
growling and moaning in its fury and suffering. His
voice had a curious timbre. I once heard a man dying
of hydrophobia make such sounds, half animal, half
human.

"That feke would have killed and eaten any one of
us," said the son of Ugh! "Not many are so big as he,
but here in Hana Hevane, where seldom any one fished,
they are the biggest in the world. They lie in these
holes in the rocks and catch fish and crabs as they swim
by. My cousin was taken by one while fishing, and was
dragged down into the hidden caverns. He was last
seen standing on a ledge, and the next day his bones
were found picked clean, A shark is easier to fight
than such a devil who has so many arms."

The boatsmen gathered up the remnants of the foe
and brought them to the beach, where the elder Ugh!
was tending the fire. Crabs were broiling upon it, and
the pieces of the feke were flung beside them and the
smaller octopi,

When they were cooked, a trough of popoi and one of
feikai, or roasted breadfruit mixed with a cocoanut-milk
sauce, were placed on the sand, and all squatted to dine.
For a quarter of an hour the only sounds were the plup

58 WHITE SHADOWS

of fingers withdrawn from mouths filled with popoi, and
the faint creaming of waves on the beach. Marquesans
feel that eating is serious business. The devil-fish and
crabs were the delicacies, and served as dessert. Black-
ened by the fire, squid and crustacean were eaten without
condiment, the tentacles being devoured as one eats
celery. I was soon satisfied, and while they lingered
over their food and smoked I strolled up the valley a
little way, still feeling the pressure of that severed arm.

Hana Hevane had its people one time. They van-
ished as from a hundred other valleys, before the march
of progress. The kindly green of the j ungle had hidden
the marks of human habitations, where once they had
lived and loved and died.

Only the bones of La Corse,, the schooner Jerome
Capriata had sailed many years, lay rotting under a
grotesque and dark banian, never more to feel the foot
of man upon the deck or to toss upon the sea. A consol-
ing wave lapped the empty pintles and gave the decay-
ing craft a caress by the element whose mistress she sio
long had been. Her mast was still stepped, but a hun-
dred centipedes crawled over the hull.

When I returned to the fire, the boatmen were talk-
ing, Ugh! Dried-up Stream! his stomach full and
smoke in his mouth, bethought himself of a tale, an inci-
dent of this very spot. In a sardonic manner ,he began:

"The men of this island, Tahuata, in the old days
descended on Fatu-hiva to hunt the man-meat. After
the battle, they brought their captives to Hana Hevane
to rest, to build a fire and to eat one of their catch. This
they did, and departed again. But when they were in
their canoes, they found they had forgotten a girl whom

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 50

they had thrown on the sand, and they returned for her.
The sea was rough, and they had to stay here on the
beach for the night.

"As was the custom, they erected a gibbet, two posts
and a horizontal bar, and on the bar they hung the living
prisoners, with a cord of parau bark passed through the
scalp and tied around the hair. Their arms were tied
behind them, and they swung in the breeze.

"In the night, when the Tahuata men slept from their
gluttony, one of them arose silently and unbound a pris-
oner who was his friend, and told him to run to the
mountains. He then lay down and slept, and in the
darkness this man who had been freed returned stealth-
ily in the darkness, and unloosed a girl, the same who
had been forgotten on the sand. In the morning the
other captives were dead, but those who escaped were
months in the fastness of the heights, living on roots and
on birds they snared. In the end they went to Motopu,
They were well received, for the Tahuata warriors
thought a god had aided them, and they and their chil-
dren lived long there."

Ugh! smiled reminiscently as if his thoughts were re-
turning from pleasant things, and clapped his hands as a
signal for reembarking.

The bowls of food remaining were tied in baskets of
leaves and hung in the banian tree to await the boats-
men's return for the night, the steersman was carried to
his place, and the boat pushed through the surf,

A gaunt shark swam close to the reefs as we rowed
out, a hungry, ill-looking monster. One of the bottles
of rum the oarsmen had drunk on the way to Hana
Hevane, the other was stored for their return, and to

60 WHITE SHADOWS

gain a third the son of Ugh! offered to go overboard and
tie a rope to the shark's tail, which is the way natives
often catch them. A shark was not worth a liter of ruin,
I said, being in no mind to risk the limbs of a man in
such a sport. Besides, I had no more to give away. I
could imagine the rage of Seventh Man Who Wallows
should he learn of my wasting in such foolishness what
would keep us both warm if it rained.

As we caught the wind a flock of koio came close to us
in their search for fish. The black birds were like a
cloud; there must have been fifty thousand of them, and
flying over us they completely cut off the sunlight, like
a dark storm. If they had taken a fancy to settle on us
they must have smothered us under a feathered ava-
lanche. Ugh! was startled and amazed that the
birds should come so close, and all raised an uproar of
voices and waved arms and oars in the air, to frighten
them off. They passed, the sun shone upon us again,
and in a sparkling sea we made our way past Iva Iva Iti
and Iva Iva Nui, rounding a high green shore into the
bay of Vait-hua.

The mountains above the valley loomed like castel-
lated summits of Italy, so like huge stone fortress.es that
one might mistake them for such from the sea. The
tiny settlement reaching from the beach half a mile up
the glen was screened by its many trees.

The whaleboat slid up to a rocky ledge, and my lug-
gage and I were put ashore. Exploding Eggs, who
had insisted on accompanying me, took it into his charge,
and with it balanced on his shoulders we sauntered along
the road to the village where the French gendarme had
lost his nose to the mad ftamw-drinker.

CHAPTER VII

Idyllic valley of Vait-hua; the beauty of Vanquished Often; bathing on
the beach; an unexpected proposal of marriage.

THE beach followed the semi-circle of the small
bay, and was hemmed in on both sides by mas-
sive black rocks, above which rose steep moun-
tains covered with verdure. The narrow valley itself
sloped upward on either hand to a sheer wall of cliffs.
In the couple of miles from the water's edge to the
jungle tangle of the high hills were thousands upon thou-
sands of cocoanut-palms, breadfruit-, mango-, banana-,
and lime-trees, all speaking of the throng of people
that formerly inhabited this lovely spot, now so deserted.

The tiny settlement remaining, with its scattered few
habitations, was beautiful beyond comparison. A score
or so of houses, small, but neat and comfortable,
wreathed with morning-glory vines and shaded by trees,
clustered along the bank of a limpid stream crossed at
intervals "by white stepping-stones. Naked children,
whose heads were wreathed with flowers, splashed in
sheltered pools, or fled like moving brown shadows into
the sun-flecked depths of the glade as we approached.

We were met beneath a giant banian-tree by the chief,
who greeted us with simple dignity and led us at once to
his house, The most pretentious in the village, it con-
siste^d of two rooms, built of redwood boards from Cali-
fornia, white-washed, clean, and bare, opening through
wide doors upon the broad paepae. This house, the

61

62 WHITE SHADOWS

chief insisted, was to be my home while I remained his
guest in Vait-hua. My polite protestations he waved
away with a courtly gesture and an obdurate smile. I
was an American, and his guest.

My visit was obviously a great event in the eyes of
Mrs. Seventh Man Who Is So Angry He Wallows In
The Mire. A laughing Juno of thirty years, large and
rounded as a breadfruit-tree, more than six feet in
height, with a mass of blue-black hair and teeth that
flashed white as a fresh-opened cocoanut, she rose from
her mat on the paepae and rubbed my nose ceremoni-
ously with hers. Clothed in a necklace of false pearls
and a brilliantly scarlet loincloth, she was truly a bar-
baric figure, yet in her eye I beheld that instant pre-
occupation with household matters that greets the unex-
pected guest the world over.

While the chief and I reclined upon mats and Explod-
ing Eggs sat vigilant at my side, she vanished into the
house, and shortly returned to set before us a bowl of
popoi and several cocoanuts. These we ate while Neo
discoursed sadly upon the evil times that had befallen his
reign.

"Me very busy when prenty ship come," he mourned.
"Me fix for wood; get seven dollar load. Me fix for girl
for captain and mate. Me stay ship, eat hard-tackee,
salt horsee, chew tobacco, drink rum. Good time he all
dead/'

The repast ended, we set out to view the depleted vil-
lage with its few inhabitants, the remainder after Eu-
rope had subtracted native habits and native healtty.

The gorge that parted the valley was wide and deep
for the silver stream that sang its way to the b$y.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 63

When the rain fell in cascades the channel hardly con-
tained the mad torrent that raced from the heights, a
torrent that had destroyed the road built years before
when whaler's ships by the dozens came each year.
Now the natives made their way as of old, up and- down
rocky trails and over the stepping-stones,

Near the beach we came upon a group of tumble-
down shanties, remnants of the seat of government.
Only a thatched schoolhouse and a tiny cabin for the
teacher were habitable. Here the single artist of the
islands, Monsieur Charles Le Moine, had taught the
three "K/s" to Vait-hua's adolescents for years. He
was away now, Neo said, but we found his cabin open
and littered with canvases, sketches, paint-tubes, and
worn household articles.

"He got litt'ee broomee, an' sweep paint out litt'ee
pipe on thing make ship's sails," Neo explained.
Surely -a description of a broad modern style.

On the wall or leaning against it on the floor were a
dozen drawings and oils of a young girl of startling
beauty. Laughing, clear-eyed, she seemed almost to
speak from the canvas, filling the room with charm.
Here she leaned against a palm-trunk, her bare brown
body warm against its gray; there she stood on a white
beach, a crimson parcu about her loins and hibiscus
flowers in her hair.

"That Hinatini/' said Seventh Man Who Wallows,
speaking always in what he supposed to be English.
"She some pumkin, eh? Le Moine like more better
make tiki like this than say book. She my niece."

The rich colors of the pictures sang like bugle-notes
among the shabby odds and ends of the studio. A cot,

64 WHITE SHADOWS

a broken chair or two, a table smeared with paints, an
old shoe, a pipe, and a sketch of the Seine, gave me Le
Moine in his European birthright, but the absence of
any European comforts, the lack even of dishes and a
lamp, told me that Montmartre would not know him
again. The eyes of the girl who lived on the canvases
said that Le Moine was claimed by the Land of the
War Fleet.

Turning from the dingy interior of his cabin, I saw
in the sunlight beyond the door his model in the life.
Le Moine had not the brush to do her justice. Van-
quished Often, as Hinatini means, was perhaps thirteen
years old, with a grace of carriage, a beauty and per-
fection of features, a rich coloring no canvas could de-
pict. Her skin was of warm olive hue, with tinges of
red in the cheeks and the lips cherry-ripe. Her eyes
were dark brown, large, melting, childishly introspec-
tive. Her hands were shapely, and her little bare feet,
arched, rosy-nailed, were like flowers on the sand- She
v/ore the thinnest of sheer white cotton tunics, and
there were flamboyant flowers in the shining dark hair
that tumbled to her waist. '

She greeted me with the eager artlessness of the child
that she was. She was on her way to the vai puna, the
spring by the beach, she said. Would I accompany
her thither? And would I tell her of the women of my
people in the strange islands of the Memke? They
were very far away, were they not, those islands? Far-
ther even than Tahiti? How deep beneath the sea
could their women dive?

I answered these, and other questions, while we
walked down the beach, and I marveled at the uncon-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 65

scious grace of her movements. The chief wonder
of all these Marquesans is the beauty and erectness of
their standing and walking postures. Their chests are
broad and deep, their bosoms, even in girls of Van-
quished Often's age, rounded, superb, and their limbs
have an ease of motion, an animaHike litheness un-
known to our clothed and dress-bound women.

Vanquished Often was the most perfect type of all
these physical perfections, a survival of those wondrous
Marquesan women who addled the wits of the whites a
century ago. There was no blemish on her, nor any
feature one would alter.

Half a dozen of her comrades were lounging t "
the sand when we reached the via puna. Here an
pipe in the mountain-side tapped subterranean waic,
and a hollowed cocoanut-tree gave them exit upon 1-
sand where salt waves flowed up to meet them. L/
lean curving cocoariuts arched above, and beneath 1 ;*
ribbons of shade lay an old canoe, upon which sat the.
who waited their turn to bathe, to fill calabashes *.
merely to gossip.

For all time, they said, this had been the center '
life in Vait-hua. Old wives* tales had been told \;;^
for generations. The whalers filled their casks at \l
spring, working every hour of the twenty-four because
the flow was small. Famous harpooners, steersmen
who winked no eye when the wounded whale drew their
boat through a smother of foam, shanghaied gentle-
men, sweepings of harbors, RTantucket deacons, pirates,
and the whole breed of sailors and fighting fellows, con-
gregated here to bathe and to fill their water-casks.
"Near this crystal rivulet they slashed each other in their

06 WHITE SHADOWS

quarrels over Viat-hua's fairest, and exchanged theii
slop-chest luxuries and grog for the favors of the island
chiefs.

It was Standard Oil, sending around the world its
tipoti, or tin cans, filled with illuminating fluid cheaper
than that of the whale, that ended the days of the ships
in Vait-hua, and they sailed away for the last tune, leav-
ing an island so depopulated that its few remaining peo-
ple could slip back into the life of the days before the
whites came.

"Alice Snow las' whaleship come Vait-hua six years
before," said the Seventh Man Who Wallows. "Be-
fore that, one ship, California name, Captain Andrew
Hicks. Charlie, he sailmaker, run away from Andrew
Hicks. One Vait-hua girl look good to him. Sheliide

Un in hills till captain make finish chase him. That

im children."

^ Indeed, most of the faces turned toward me from the

roup about the spring were European, either by receat
heredity or tribal nature. I could see the Saxon, the
Latin, and the Viking, and one girl was all Japanese,
a reference to which caused her to weep, "lapona"
was to her pretty ears the meanest word in Vait-hua's
vocabulary, and her playmates held it in reserve for
important disagreements.

Vanquished Often, slipping from her white tunic,
stepped beneath the stream of crystal water and laughed
at the cool delight of it on her smooth skin. It was a
picture of which artist's dream, the naked girl laughing
in the torrents of transparent water, the wet eximson
blossoms washing from her drowned hair, and beneath
the striped shade of the palm-trunks her simple, savage

IN THE SOUTH SEAS C>7

companions waiting their turn, squatting on the sand
or crowded on the canoe, their loins wrapped in crim-
son and blue and yellow parent Behind them all the
mountains rose steeply, a mass of brilliant green jungle
growth, and before them, across the rim of shining white
sand, spread the wide blue sea.

Courtesy suggested that I should be next to feel the
refreshing torrent. We let slip the garment of timor-
ous covering very easily when nudity is commonplace.
Vait-hua was to teach me to be modest without pother,
to chat with those about me during my ablutions with-
out concern for the false vanities of screens or even the
shelter of rocks as in the river in Atuona. In such
scenes one perceives that immodesty is in the false shame
that makes one cling to clothes, rather than in the simple
virtues that walk naked and unashamed.

Tacitus recites that chastity was a controlling virtue
among the Teutons, ranking among women as bravery
among men, yet all Teutons bathed in the streams to-
gether. In Japan both sexes bathe in public in natural
hot pools, and that without diffidence. The Japanese,
though a people of many clothes, regard nudity with in-
difference, but use garments to conceal the contour of
the human form, while we are horrified by nakedness
and yet use dress to enhance the form, especially to
emphasize the difference between sexes. Our women's
accentuated hips and waistlines shock the Japanese,
whose loose clothing is the same for men and women,
the broader belt and double fold upon the small of the
back, the obi, being the only differentiation.

Mohammedan women surprised in bathing cover
their faces first; the Chinese, the feet. Good Erasmus,

68. WHITE SHADOWS

that Dutch theologian, said that "angels abhor naked-
ness." Devout Europeans of his day never saw their
own bodies; if they bathed, they wore a garment cover-
ing them from head to feet. Thus standards of cloth-
ing vary from age to age and from country to country.

Missionaries bewilder the savage mind by imposing
their own standards of the moment and calling them
modesty. The African negro, struggling to har-
monize these two ideas, wore a tall silk hat and a pair
of slippers as his only garments when he obeyed Living-
stone's exhortations to clothe himself in the presence of
white women.

Vait-hua was all savage; whatever bewilderments the
missionaries had brought had faded when dwindling
population left the isle to its own people. In the minds
of my happy companions at the via puna, modesty had
no more to do with clothing than, among us, it had to do
with food. The standards of the individual are every-
where formed by the mass-opinion of those about him;
I came from my bath, replaced my garments, and felt
myself Marquesan,

The sensation waa false. Savage peoples can never
understand our philosophy, our complex springs of
action. They may ape oux manners, wear our orna-
ments, % and seek our company, but their souls remain
indifferent. They laugh when we are stolid. They
weep when we are unmoved. Their gods and devils
are not ours.

From our side, too, the abyss is impassable. Civiliza-
tion with its refinements and complexities has stripped
us of the power of complete surrender to simple im-
pulses. The white who would become like a natural

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 69

savage succeeds only in becoming a beast. "Plus sauv-
age gue les kanakas" is a proverb in the islands. Its
implications I had occasion to heed ere the evening was
ended.

Wrapped only in a gorgeous red pareu, I sat on the
paepae of the chief's house, now become mine. I was
the especial care of Mrs. Seventh Man Who Wallows,
who all afternoon long had sat on her haunches over a
cocoanut husk fire stirring savory foods for me. Fish,
chickens, pigs, eggs, and native delicacies of all kinds
she had cooked and sauced so appetizingly that I con-
ferred on her the title of "Chefess" de Cuisine, and
voiced my suspicions that some deserting cook from a
flagship had traded his lore for her kisses. Her laugh-
ter was spiced with pride, and the chief himself smilingly
nodded and gestured to assure me that I had guessed
right.

Now in the quiet of the evening, empty bowls re-
moved, pandanus : leaf cigarettes lighted, and pipe pass-
ing from hand to hand, we sat rejoicing in the sweet
odors of the forest, the murmur of the stream, and the
ease of contentment. Many elders of the village had
come to meet the stranger, to discuss the world and its
wonders, and to marvel at the ways of the whites. The
glow of the pipe lighted shriveled yet still handsome
countenances scrolled with tattooing, and caught
gleams from rolling eyes or sparkles from necklace and
earring. Above the mountains a full moon rose, flood-
ing the valley with light and fading the brilliant colors
of leaf and flower to pale pastel tints.

Vanquished Often sat beside me, her dark hair fall-
ing over my knee, and listened respectfully to the con-

70 WHITE SHADOWS

versatlon of her elders, who discussed the gods of the
stranger.

They wondered what curious motive had impelled
the Jews, the Aati-Ietu, to kill leto Kirito the Savior
of the world* They discussed the strange madness
that had possessed luda Iskalota, that he had first
bought land with his thirty pieces of silver and then
hanged himself to a purau tree. Was it cocoanut land?
they asked. Was it not good land?

Often across the worn stones of the paepae stole a
vei, a centipede, upon which a bare foot quickly
stamped. The chief said casually, "If he bite you, you
no die ; you have hell of a time." They were not natives
of the Marquesas originally, he said; they came in the
coal of ships. His patriotism outran his knowledge,
for the first discoverers bitterly berated these poisonous
creatures, though no more warmly than Neo, who drew
heavily upon his stock of English curses to tell his opin-
ion of them.

When the time came for saying apae kaoJia my kindly
hosts sought to confer upon me the last proof of their
friendliness. They proposed that I marry Vanquished
Often.

Sly refusal was incomprehensible to them, and Van-
quished Of ten's happy smile in the moonlight quickly
faded to a look of pain and humiliation. They had of-
fered me their highest and most revered expression of
hospitality. To refuse it was as uncustomary and as
rude as to refuse the Alaskan miner who offers a drink
at a public bar.

"Memke? pleaded the chief, "that Hinatini more
better marry white man, friend of Teddy, from number

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 71

one island. She some punkins for be good wife. Sup-
pose may be you like Vait-hua you stay long time; sup-
pose you go soon, make never mind !"

The fair chieftess shook her earrings and smiled
archly. "Bonne filly pooh voo, Menike," she urged in
her Marquesan French. "Good wife for you. It is
my pleasure that you are happy. She is beautiful and
good. You will be the son of our people while you are
here."

Vanquished Often, who had a vague notion of the
greatness of her uncle's Menike friends, Teddy and
Gotali, and of the desirability of an alliance with one of
their tribe, approached me softly and rubbed my back
in a circle the while she crooned a broken song of the
whaling days, concerning the "rolling Mississippi" and
the "Black Ball line." Seventh Man Who Wallows in
the Mire himself began to make concentric circles on
my breast with his heavy hand, so that I was beset fore
and aft by the most tender and friendly advances of the
Marquesan race. Never was hapless guest in more un-
fortunate plight.

She was but a child, I said; Americans did not mate
with children. They smiled as at a pleasantry, and
again extolled her charms. Desperately I harked back
to the ten commandments in an endeavor to support my
refusal by other reasons than distaste or discourtesy,
but laughter met my text. "White man does not fol-
low white man's tapus" said my hostess, gently placing
my hand in that of Vanquished Often. The slender
fingers clung timorously to mine. Unhappy Hinatini
feared that she was about to be disgraced before her
people by the white man's scorn of her beauty.

72 WHITE SHADOWS

I was fain to invent a romance upon the spot* I was
madly enamoured of an Atuona belle, I said. She
waited for me upon my own paepae; she was a mighty
woman and swift to anger* She would wreak ven-
geance upon me, and upon Vanquished Often. I
would adopt Vanquished Often as my sister. In token
of this I pressed my lips upon her forehead and kissed
her hands. She smiled bewitchingly, pleased by the
novel honor.

My hosts and their friends departed with her, half
pleased, half puzzled at this latest whimsy of the strange
white, and I lay down upon the mats of the chiefs
house, with Exploding Eggs lying across the doorway
at my feet.

The night brought fitful dreams, and in the darkest
hour I woke to feel a frightening thing upon my leg.
By the light of the dimly burning lantern I saw a thou-
sand-leg, reddish brown and ten inches long, halting
perhaps for breath midway between my knee and waist.
It seemed indeed to have a thousand legs, and each
separate foot made impresses of terror on my mind,
while each toe and claw clutched my bare flesh with
threatening touch.

The brave man of the tale who saves himself from
cobra or rattler by letting the serpent crawl its slow
way over his perfectly controlled body might have with-
held even a quiver of the flesh, but I am ro Spartan.
At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped a
death-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew
that lay nearby, pried loose with a quick jerk every
single pede and threw the odious thing a doscen yards,

JS

s
I

^

Nothing to do but rest all day

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 73

A trail of red, inflamed spots rose where it had stood
and remained painful and swollen for days.

Whether it was because this experience became mixed
with my first dreams in beautiful Vait-hua, or whether
my Celtic blood sees portents where they do not exist,
certain it is that as the stealthy charm of that idyllic
place grew upon me through the days something within
me resisted it. I was ever aware that its beauty con-
cealed a menace deadly to the white man who listened
too long to the rustle of its palms and the murmur of its
stream.

CHAPTER VIII

Communal life; sport in the waves; fight of the sharks and the mother
whale; a day in the mountains; death of Le Capitane Halley; return
to Atuona.

LIFE in Vait-hua was idyllic. The whites, hav-
ing desolated and depopulated this once
thronged valley, had gone, leaving the remnant
of its people to return to their native virtue and quie-
tude. Here, perhaps more than in any other spot in
all the isles, the Marquesan lived as his forefathers had
before the whites came.

Doing nothing sweetly was an art in Vait-hua.
Pleasure is nature's sign of approval. When man is
happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environ-
ment. The people of this quiet valley did not crave
excitement. The bustle and nervous energy of the
white wearied them excessively. Time was never
wasted, to their minds, for leisure was the measure of
its value.

Domestic details, the preparation of food, the care of
children, the nursing of the sick, were the tasks of all
the household. Husband and wife, or the mates un-
married, labored together in delightful unity. Often
the woman accompanied her man into the forests, assist-
ing in the gathering of nuts and breadfruit, in the fish-
ing and the building. When these duties did not oc-
cupy them, or when they were not together bathing
in the river or at the via puna, they sat side by side

74

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 75

on their paepaes in meditation. They might discuss
the events of the day, they might receive the visits of
others, or go abroad for conversation; but for hours
they often were wrapped in their thoughts, in a silence
broken only by the rolling of their pandanus cigarettes
or the lighting of the mutual pipe.

"Of what are you thinking ?" I said often to my
neighbors when breaking in upon their meditation*

"Of the world. Of those stars," they replied.

They would sympathize with that Chinese traveler
who, visiting America and being hurried from carriage
to train, smiled at our idea of catching the fleeting
moment.

"We save ten minutes by catching this train/' said
his guide, enthusiastically.

"And what will you do with that ten minutes T de-
manded the Chinese.

To be busy about anything not necessary to living
is, in Marquesan wisdom, to be idle.

Swimming in the surf, lolling at the via puna, angling
from rock or canoe or fishing with line and spear out-
side the bay, searching for shell-fish, and riding or walk-
ing over the hills to other valleys, filled their peaceful,
pleasant days* A dream-like, care-free life, lived by a
people sweet to know, handsome and generous and
loving.

That he never saw or heard of the slightest quarrel
between individuals was the statement a century ago
of Captain Porter, the American. Then as now the
most perfect harmony prevailed among them. They
lived like affectionate brothers of one family, he said,
the authority of the chiefs being only that of fathers

76 WHITE SHADOWS

among children. They had no mode of punishment for
there were no offenders. Theft was unknown, and all
property was left unguarded. So Porter, who, with
his ship's company, killed so many Marquesans, was
fully aware of their civic virtues, their kindness, gentle-
ness and generosity.

It is so to-day, in Vait-hua where the whites are not,
I have had my trousers lifted from my second-story
room in a Manila hotel hy the eyed and fingered bamboo
of the Tagalog ladron, while I washed my face, and
stood aghast at the mystery of their disappearance with
door locked, until looking from my lofty window I
beheld them moving rapidly down an estero in a banca.
I have given over my watch to a gendarme in Cairo
to f orf end arrest for having beaten an Arab who tripped
me to pick my pocket, and I have surrendered to the
rapacity of a major-general-uniformed official in Italy,
who would incarcerate me for not having a tail-light
lit. In San Francisco, when robbed upon the public
street, I have listened while the police suggested that
I offer a fee to the "king of the dips" and a reward
to certain saloonkeepers to intercede with the unknown-
to-me liighwaymen for the return of an heirloom.

Yet through the darkest nights in Vait-hua I slept
serenely, surrounded by all the possessions so desirable
in the eyes of my neighbors, in a house the doors of
which were never fastened. There was not a lock in
all the village, or anything that answered the purpose
of one- The people of this isolated valley, forgetting
their brief encounter with the European idea of money
and of the accumulation of property, had reverted to
the ways of their fathers.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 77

Before interference with their natural customs the
Marquesans were communists to a large degree. Their
only private property consisted of houses, weapons, or-
naments, and clothing, for the personal use of the owner
himself. All large works, such as the erection of
houses, the building of large canoes, and, in ancient
days, the raising of paepaes and temples, were done by
mutual cooperation; though each family provided its
own food and made provision for the future by storing
breadfruit in the popoi pits. Neo, like the long line
of chiefs before him, had gathered a little more of the
good things of life than had the majority, but he was
in no sense a dictator, except as personality won obe-
dience. In the old days a chief was often relegated
to the ranks for failure in war, and always for an over-
bearing attitude toward the commoners. Such arro-
gant fellows were kicked out of the seat of power un-
ceremoniously.

"Our pure republican policy approaches so near their
own," said the American naval captain, Porter, a hun-
dred years ago.

Men were honored for their artistry, highest place
being given to the tattooers, the carvers, the designers,
and builders of canoes, the architects, doctors, and war-
riors. Men and women rose to influence and chiefly
rank only by deeds that won popular admiration.
These people were hero-worshippers, and in the blood-
iest of the old days those of fine soul who had a mes-
sage .of entertainment or instruction were tapu to all
tribes, so that they could travel anywhere in safety and
were welcome guests in all homes.

It is true that in Hawaii and Tonga conquerors made

78 WHITE SHADOWS

themselves kings, but not there or in Samoa, Tahiti, or
the Marquesas were kings supreme rulers until the
whites established them for their own trade purposes
and sold them firearms by which to maintain their power,

That day of the whites had passed in Vait-hua. The
chief now maintained his authority by the fondness of
his people alone. Generous he was, and gentle, yet I
minded that he had bitten off the nose of Severin, the
French gendarme, when the namu had made him mad.
JSTow whether guided by pride in his discipline or by,
memory of evil-doing repented, he was strict in his en-
forcement of the prohibition of cocoanut toddy, and
sobriety made the days and nights peaceful.

Early in the mornings I called "Kaoha!" from my
paepae to Mrs, Seventh Man, who came each day from
her bath in the via pima attired in her earrings only,
Sauntering along the bank of the brook still dripping
from the spring, her wet black hair clinging to her
shapely back and her tawny skin glistening in flickering
light and shade, she was for all the world my concep-
tion of Mother Eve before even leaves were modesty,
Her nudity was a custom only at this time, for when she
reappeared to aid Exploding Eggs in. preparing my
breakfast she always wore a scarlet pareu and her hair
was done like Bernhardt's.

Vanquished Often appeared with her aunt, carefully
dressed in spotless, diaphanous tunic, fresh flowers in
her hair, a treasured pink silk garter clasping her
rounded arm. "Big White Brother/' she called me
with pride, though often I saw a sad wonder in her
great eyes as she squatted near, silently watching r f ie.
Her possessive ways were pretty to see as she walked

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 79

close by my side on the trail from my cabin to the beach,
while Exploding Eggs regarded her jealously, insist-
ing on his prerogative as Tueni Oki Kiki, Keeper of the
Golden Bed, the glittering magnificence of which he
described minutely to her.

We arrived at a merry scene upon the beach.
Women and children were in the surf, or on rocks under
the cliffs, fishing for popo, the young of uua. With
bamboo poles twenty feet long and lines of even greater
length, we stood up to our necks in the sea and threw
out the hook baited with a morsel of shrimp. The
breakers tumbled us about, the lines became tangled,
amid gales of laughter and a medley of joyous shouts.
Tiring of fishing, Vanquished Often and I would breast
the creaming waves side by side, to turn far out and
dash in on the breakers, overturning all but the wary.
Or a group of us, climbing high on the cliffs, would
fling ourselves again and again into the sea, turning
in mid-air, life and delight quickening every muscle.

Wearying of this sport, we embarked in canoes, fish-
ing or sailing, and many small adventures we had, for
the younger and more daring spirits delighted in scar-
ing me into expostulation or the silence of the con-
demned and then saving my life by a hair's-breadth.

We had gone one morning about the southern cape,
and were harpooning swordfish and the gigantic sun-
fish when a commotion a thousand feet away brought
shouts of warning from my companions. We saw two
whales, one with a baby at her breast. The other we
took to be the father whale. Huge black beasts they
were. Upon this mated pair a band of sharks had flung
themselves to seize' the infant.

80 WHITE SHADOWS

There were at least twenty-five sharks in the mad
mob, great white monsters thirty feet in length, man-
eaters by blood-taste, tigers in disposition. Though
they could not compare with their prey in size or power,
they had heads as large as barrels, and mouths that
would drag a man through their terrible gaps. That
their hunger was past all bounds was evident, for the
whale is not often attacked by such inferior-sized fish.
Storms had raged on the sea for days, and maybe had
cheated the sharks of their usual food.

They swam around and around the mountainous pair,
darting in and out, evidently with some plan of drawing
off the male. Both the whales struck out incessantly
with their mammoth flukes; their great tails, crashing
upon the sea-surface, lashed it to mountains of foam,
Our boats tossed as in a gale.

Carried away by the pity and terror of the scene,
we shouted threats and curses at the monsters, calling
down on them in Marquesan the wrath of the sea-gods.
Frenziedly handling tiller and sails, we circled the
battle, impotent to aid the poor woman-beast and her
baby. The sharks harried them as hounds a fox. Des-
perately the parents fought, more than one shark sank
wounded to the depths and one, turning its white belly
to the sun, floated dead upon the waves. Another
was flung high in air by a blow of the mother's tail,
But it was an uneven contest. At last we saw the
nursling drawn from her breast, and the mother her-
self sank, still struggling. She may have risen, of
course, far away, but she seemed disabled.

We did not wait about that bloody spot when the
sharks had fallen upon their prey, for our canoe was

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 81

low in the water, and with such a sight to warn us, we
did not doubt that the loathly monsters would attack
us.

From such a sight it was a relief to turn to the moun-
tains. Along the steep trails I roamed far with Van-
quished Often and Exploding Eggs. We played at
being alone with nature, foregoing in living all that
the white man had brought. I left the house of the
chief naked save for a loin-cloth of native make, and
I wore no shoes or hat. Vanquished Often and my
valet were attired as I, and thus we shouted "Kaoha!"
to the chieftess and started toward adventure.

Seventh Man was dubious about my setting off with-
out some prepared food, popoi or canned fish or bis-
cuits, and without sleeping-mats. "You ketchee hun-
gery by an' soon," he protested. "No got Gold Bed
in mountains."

Vanquished Often laughed merrily, and the chief
looked like a father whose child has thrown a stone at
the bogie-man. I rubbed his nose with mine in fare-
well, and we began our journey, barehanded as Crusoe,
yet more fortunate than he since we were in the best
of company and I had the comforting knowledge that
Marquesan youth would not go hungry or permit me
to do so.

Our way led up heights of marvelous beauty, along
the edges of deep defiles that opened below our feet
like valleys of Paradise. The candlenut, the ama^ with
its lilac bloom, the hibiscus and pandanus, green and
glossy, the petavii> a kind of banana the curving fronds
of which spread high in air, the snake-plant, makomdko,
a yellow-flowered shrub, and many others none of us

82 WHITE SHADOWS

could name, carpeted the farther mountain-sides with
brilliant colors. Everywhere were eocoanuts, guavas,
and mangos. In the tree-tops over our heads the bind-
weed shook its feathery seed-pods, the parasite kowia
dripped its deeply serrated leaves and crimson umbels,
and thousands of orchids hung like butterflies.

"It is beautiful in your islands, is it not?" Vanquished
Often said wistfully. "Tell us more of the marvels
there! Are the girls of your valleys very lovely, and
do they all sleep in golden beds?"

All daughters of chiefs slept in golden beds, I told
her. Often they wore golden slippers on their feet.
When they wished to go over the mountains they did
not walk, or ride on donkeys, but went in seats cov-
ered with velvet, a kind of cloth more soft than the
silk ribbon of her pink garter-armlet, and these seats
were drawn at incredible speed by a snorting thing
made of iron, not living, but stronger than a hundred
donkeys,

"How do they make that cloth?" said Vanquished
Often, eagerly. They did not make it, I explained.
It was made for them by girls who were not daughters
of chiefs, and therefore had no golden beds.

Her eyes clouded with bewilderment, but Exploding
Eggs listened breathlessly, and demanded more tales.
I told them of wireless telegraphy. This they believed
as they believed the tales of magic told by old sorcerers,
but they scoffed at my description of an elevator, per-
ceiving that I was loosing the reins of my fancy and
soaring to impossibilities.

"The girls in your island must always be happy,"
said Vanquished Often, sighing. All daughters of

THE SOUTH SEAS 83

chiefs were happy, I said. "What is the manner of
their fishing?" asked Exploding Eggs.

In such conversation we proceeded, walking for miles
through a fairyland in which we were the only lining
creatures, save for the small scurrying things that
slipped across the trail, and the bright-colored birds
that fluttered through the tree-tops.

At noon we paused for luncheon. Vanquished Often
disappeared in the forest, to return shortly with her
gathered-up tunic filled with mangos and guavas, four
cocoanuts slung in a neatly plaited basket of leaves
on her bare shoulders. Exploding Eggs, cutting two
sticks of dry wood from the underbrush, whirled them
upon each other with such speed and dexterity that
soon a small fire, fed by shreds of cocoanut fiber, blazed
on a rock, with plantains heaped about it to roast.

While we rested after the feast Vanquished Often,
squatted by my side, made for my comfort a wide-
brimmed hat of thick leaves pinned together with
thorns, a shelter from the sun's rays that was grateful
to my tender scalp. Resuming our way, we met upon
the trail a handsome small wild donkey, fearful of our
kind, yet longing for company.

"PureekeeF said Exploding Eggs, meaning bour-
rique, the French for donkey. And Vanquished Often
related that once hundreds of these beasts roamed
through the jungle, descendants of a pair of asses es-
caped from a ship decades before, but that most of
them had starved to death in dry periods, or been eaten
by hungry natives.

Farther on we passed acres of the sensitive plant,
called by the Marquesans teita haktdna> the Modest

84 WHITE SHADOWS

Herb. A wide glade in a curve of the mountains was
filled with a sea of it, and my companions delighted
in Jashing through its curiously nervous leafage, that
shuddered and folded its feathery sprays together at
their touch. If shocked further it opened its leaflets
as if to say, "What's the use? I 'm shy, hut I can't
stay under cover forever."

In such artless amusements the day passed, a day that
remains forever an idyl of simple loveliness to me, such
as any man is the richer for having known. When
darkness overtook us, we made for ourselves the softest
of ferny beds, and slept serenely, untroubled by any-
thing, under the light of the stars,

As we returned next day to the village in the valley,
we found upon a hill far from the beach the tombs of
the sailors who first raised the standard of France in
these islands. The eternal jungle had so housed in
their monuments that we had hot work to break through
the jealous lantana and pandanus to see the stones.
Neither Vanquished Often nor Exploding Eggs had
ever cast eyes on them, and neither had but a legendary
memory of how these men of the conquering race had
met their death.

A great slab of native basalt eroded by seventy years
of sun and rain bore the barely discernible epitaph:

"Ci Git

Edouard Michel Halley
Capitaine de Corvette

Officier de la Legion d'honneur

Fondateur de la colonie de Vait-hua
Mort au cliamp d'honneur
Le 17 bre,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 85

I read it to my friends. They pressed their hands
to their brows to conjure up a vision of this dead man
whom their grandfathers had fought and slain, as I told
them the story of his death in the jungle at our feet.

It was at Vait-hua that the French first took posses-
sion of the Marquesas. Here already were mission-
aries and beach-combers of many nationalities, ardent
spirits all, fighting each other for the souls of the na-
tives; gin and the commandments at odds, ritual and
exploitation contending. Unable to subdue the forces
that threatened the peace of his people, lotete, Vait-
hua's chief, sent a message asking the help of the French
admiral. It came at once; a garrison was established
on the beach, and the tricolor rose.

Whatever the cause, it had been upraised barely two
months when chief and people in a body deserted their
homes and fled to the hills. Commander Halley, hav-
ing vainly exhorted and commanded them to return,
declared war on them in punishment for their disobedi-
ence, and marshaling his forces in three columns set
out to seek them.

Ladebat led the van, armed with a fowling-piece.
Halley himself walked at the head of the middle column,
a youthful, debonair Frenchman, carrying only a cane,
which he swung jauntily as he followed the jungle trail.
When the soldiers arrived at a few feet from the main
body of the natives, lotete advanced and cried out,
"Tapu!"

Ladebat instantly fired his shot-gun at the chief, and
instantly two balls from native guns pierced his brain.

"Halley," runs the old chronicle, "advanced from the
shelter of a cocoanut-tree to give orders to his men, but

86 WHITE SHADOWS

fell on his knees as if in prayer, embracing the tree,
three paces from the corpse of Ladebat. Five of his
men dropped mortally wounded beside him. Third
Officer Laferriere had the retreat sounded."

Here, but a few feet from the spot where the gay
young Frenchman fell, the jungle had covered his
tomb. Fifty thousand Marquesans have died to bring
peace to the soul of that corvette commander who so
jauntily flourished his cane in the faces of the wondering
savages. lotete would better have endured the pranks
of brutal sea-adventurers, perhaps* This mausoleum
was the seal of French occupancy.

Farther down the hill we came upon the first church
built in the Marquesas, It was a small wooden edifice
bearing a weatherbeaten sign in French, "The Church
of the Mother of God/' Above the shattered doors
were two carven hearts, a red dagger through one and
a red flame issuing from the other. A black cross was
fixed above these symbols, which Vanquished Often and
Exploding Eggs regarded with respect. To the Mar-
quesan these are all tiki., or charms, which have super-
seded their own.

Beside the decaying church stood a refectory far gone
in ruin, that once had ixoused a dozen friars. Bread-
fruit-, mango- and orange- trees grew in the tangled tall
grass, and the garden where the priests had read their
breviaries was a wilderness of tiger-lilies. Among them
we found empty bottles of a "Medical Discovery," a
patent medicine dispensed from Boston, favored in
these islands where liquor is tabooed by government.

Seventh Man, coming up the trail to meet us, found

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 87

us looking at them. He lifted one and sniffed it re-
gretfully.

"Prenty strong/' he said, "Make dnmkee. Call him
Kennedee, He cost much. Drinkee two piece you
sick three day." He smiled reminiscently, and once
more I thought of that day when the unfortunate gen-
darme had surprised the orgiasts in the forest and lost
his nose. The chief accompanied us down the trail*

"My brother of grandfather have first gun in Mar-
quesas/' he said with meaning when I spoke of the days
of Halley. "One chief lotete have prenty trouble
Memke whaleman. He send for French admiral help
him. Captiane Halley come with sailor. Frenchman
he never go 'way," Again his teeth gleamed in a smile.
"My brother of grandfather have gun long time in
hills/ 5 he added cryptically.

Too soon the time came when I must return to my
own paepae in Atuona. Vanquished Often wept at
my decision, and Mrs. Seventh Man rubbed my nose
long with hers as she entreated me to remain in the home
she had given over to me. The chief, finding remon-
strance useless, volunteered to accompany me on my
return, and one midnight woke me to be ready when
the wind was right. **

We went down the trail through wind and darkness,
the chief blowing a conch-shell for the crew. In the
straw shanty where my hosts had spread their mats
that I might have the full occupancy of their comfort-
able home, we found Mrs. Seventh Man making tea
for me. Vanquished Often sat apart in. the shadow,
her face averted, but when my cocoanut-shell was filled

88 WHITE SHADOWS

with the streaming brew she sprang forward passion-
ately and would let no hand but hers present it to me.

All day it had been raining, and the downpour rushed
f roln the eaves with a melancholy sound as we sat in the
lantern-lighted dimness drinking from the shells. The
crew came in one by one, their naked bodies running
water, their eyes eager for a draught of the tea, into
which I put a little rum, the last of the two litres.
Squall followed squall, shaking the hut. At half -past
two, in a little lull which Neo guessed might last, we
went out to the rain-soaked beach, launched the canoe,
and paddled away.

My last sight of Vait-hua was the dim line of surf
on the sand, and beyond it the slender figure of Van-
quished Often holding aloft a lantern whose rays faintly
illumined against the darkness her windblown white
tunic and blurred face.

The storm had lured us by a brief cessation. We
had hardly left the beach before the heavens opened
and deluged us with rain. Water sluiced our bare
backs and ran in streams down the brawny arms bend-
ing to the oars. We paddled an hour before the wind
was favorable, and a dreary hour it was. The canoe
had an out-rigger, but was so narrow that none could
sit except on the sharp side. I fell asleep even upon
it, and woke in the sea, with the chief, who\ had flung
himself to my rescue, clutching my hair.

Morning found our canoe close to the rocky coast of
Hiva-oa. As is their custom, instead of making a bee-
line for our destination or sailing to it close-hauled as
the winds permitted, the Marquesans had steered for
the nearest shore, following along it to port. This

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 89

method is attended with danger, for off the threaten-
ing cliffs a heavy sea was running, great waves dashing
on the rocks, and we were perforce in the trough as
we skirted the land.

We quit the sail for oars, and it took every ounce
of strength and skill on the part of the rowers and
Seventh Man to avoid shipwreck. Each breaker as
it passed tossed the frail craft skyward, and we fell
into the abysses as a rock into a bottomless pit. Every
instant it seemed that we must capsize. While we
fought thus, in a frenzied effort to keep off the rocks,
the sun rose, and every curl of water turned to clearest
emerald, while the hollows of the leaping waves were
purple as dark amethysts.

Suddenly, as we slid breathlessly downward, a great
wall of water rose beside us, higher and higher until
it seemed to touch the sky, clear and solid-looking as
a sheet of green glass, a sight so stupendous that amaze-
ment took the place of fear. For an instant it remained
poised above us, then crashed down with the shock of
an earthquake.

Stunned, I emerged from a .smother of water to
find our canoe completely under "thar waves, kept afloat
solely by grace of the outrigger. All hands were over-
side, clinging to the edge of the submerged craft, while
Exploding Eggs and I bailed for our lives. Strong
swimmers, they held us off-shore until we had so lowered
the water that they could resume the oars.

For two hours we tossed about, while the chief held
the steering-oar and his men paddled through a welter
of jeweled color that threatened momentarily to toss
us on the rocks. If we smashed on them we were dead

90 WHITE SHADOWS

men, for even had we been able to climb them the
tide would have drowned us against the wall of the
cliffs. No man showed the slightest fear, though they
pulled like giants and obeyed instantly each order of
the chief.

Battling in this fashion, we rounded at last Point
Teaehoa and won the protection of the Bay of Traitors,
I, at least, felt immeasurable relief, that quickly turned
to exhilaration as we hoisted sail and drove at a glorious
speed straight through the breakers to the welcoming
beach of Atuona.

CHAPTER IX

The Marquesans at ten o'clock mass; a remarkable conversation about reli-
gions and Joan of Arc in which Great Fern gives his idea of the devil

I WAS surprised to note that the few natives within
view when we landed were dressed in the stiff and
awkward clothes of the European; some fete must
have been arranged during my absence, I thought.
Then with a shock I realized that the day was Sunday.
In the lovely, timeless valley of Vait-hua the calendar
had dropped below the horizon of memory as my native
land had dropped below the rim of the sea. Here in
Atuona, whose life was colored by the presence of
whites, the days must take up their constricted regular
march again.

Already through the crystal air of a morning after
rain the mission bells were ringing clear, and Chief
Neo, forgetting the night of toil and danger past, was
eager to accompany me to church. It would be an
honor befitting his chiefly rank to sit with the distin-
guished white man in the house of worship, and I, re-
membering his perfect hospitality, was glad to do him
honor in my own valley.

We hastened to my cabin, Exploding Eggs running
before us up the trail with my luggage balanced on
his shoulders* Cocoanuts and popoi, coffee and tinned
biscuits, were waiting when we arrived. We ate hastily
and then donned proper garments, Exploding Eggs

91

92 WHITE SHADOWS

rejoicing in a stiff collar and a worn sailor-hat once
mine. They sat oddly upon him, being several sizes
too large, but he bore himself with pride as we set out
toward the church.

In the avenue of bananas leading to the mission I
lingered to observe the beauty of the flakes upon the
ground. They are the outside layers of the pendulum
of that graceful plant, the purple flower-cone that hangs
at the end of the fruit cluster with its volute and royal-
hued stem. The banana-plants, which we call trees,
lined the road and stood twenty feet high, their long
slender leaves blowing in the light wind like banners
from a castle wall.

The flakes that had dropped upon the ground were
lovely. Large as a lady's veil, ribbed satin, rose and
purple, pink and scarlet, the filmy edges curled deli-
cately, they hinted the elegance and luxury of a pretty
woman's boudoir. And, like all such dainty trifles, the
charming flower that hangs like a colored lamp in the
green chapel of the banana-grove it is useless after it
has served its brief purpose. The fruit grows better
when it is cut off.

Opposite the spacious mission grounds the wor-
shippers were gathering beneath two gnarled banian-
trees, giant-like in height and spread. Behind them
a long hedge of bananas bordered the cocoanut planta-
tion of the church, and across the narrow road rose the
chapel, the priests' residence and the nuns' house, with
several school buildings now empty because of the
French anti-clerical law.

Exploding Eggs in his new finery and the visiting
chief from Vait-hua found welcome among the waiting

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 93

natives, while Titihuti of the tattooed legs took her
seat beside me* She had combed her Titian tresses and
anointed them with oil till they shone like the kelp beds
of Monterey. Her tunic was of scarlet calico, and she
carried in her hand a straw hat with a red ribbon, to put
on when she entered the church. "Kaohat" I said to
her, and she smiled, displaying her even, white teeth.

Suddenly, looking past her at the church, my eye
caught a sight that transfixed me. In the misty light
I saw the Christ upon the cross as on Calvary. The
sublime figure was in the agony of expiration, and at
the foot of the cross stood the ever faithful mother and
the loving John in attitudes of amazement and grief.
The reality was startling; for the moment I forgot all
about me.

But Titihuti coughed, and I saw her tattooed legs
and felt the rough roots of the banian under me, and I
was back in the courtyard. The spectacle of the
Crucifixion was raised on a basalt platform fully twenty
feet long. The figures were of golden bronze, and the
cross was painted white. Over it hung the branches
of a lofty breadfruit-tree, a congruous canopy for such
a group. The Bread of Life, in truth.

A tablet on the cross bore the inscription:

"1900
Le Christ Dieu Homme

Vit

Regne

Commande

Christo Redemptori

Jubile 1901
Atuona."

91 WHITE SHADOWS

"The tiki of the true god," said Titihuti, observing
my gaze, and crossed herself with the fervor of the be-
liever in a new charm,

On the roof a score of doves were cooing as we filed
into the church. There were bas-reliefs of cherubim
and seraphim over the doorway, fat, distorted bodies
with wings a-wry, yet with a celestial vision showing
through the crude workmanship. A loop-holed but-
tress on either side of the facade spoke of the days
when the forethought of the builders planned for de-
fence in case a reaction of paganism caused the congre-
gation to attack the Christian fathers.

Inside the doorway a French nun in blue robes tugged
at a rope depending from the belfry, and above us the
bells rang out from two tiny towers. She looked curi-
ously at me and my savage companion, her pale peas-
ant's face hard, homely, unhealthy; then she kicked at
a big dog who was trying to drink the holy water from
the clam-shell beside the door. "Allez, Satan !" she said.

The benetier, large enough to immerse an infant,
was fixed to a board, a fascinating, blackened old
bracket, carved with the instruments of torture, the
nails, the spear, the scourge, and thorns. Ivory and
pearl, stained by a century or more, were inlaid. As
I dipped my hand in the shell a huge lizard that made
his nest in the hollow of the bracket ran across my
knuckles.

Within, there were seats with kneeling-planks, hewed
out of hard wood and still bearing the marks of the
adze. Upon them the congregation soon assembled, the
women on one side, the men on the other. The women

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 95

wore hats, native weaves in semi-sailor style, decorated
with Chinese silk shawls or bright-colored handkerchiefs.
All were barefooted except the pale and sickly daugh-
ters of Baufre, who wore clumsy and painful shoes.
Many Daughters, the little, lovely leper, came with
Flower, of the red-gold hair, the Weaver of Mats, who
had her names tattooed on her arm. They dipped in
the font and genuflected, then bowed in prayer.

Many familiar faces I recognized. Ah Yu, the
Chinaman who owned the little store beyond the banian-
tree and had murder upon his soul; Lam Kai Oo, my
erstwhile landlord; Flag, the gendarme; Water, in all
the glory of European trousers; Kake, with my small
namesake on her arm. The old women were tattooed
on the ears and neck in scrolls, and their lips were
marked in faint stripes. The old men, their eyes ringed
with tattooing, wore earrings and necklaces of whale's
teeth.

The church was painted white inside, with frescoes
and dados of gaudy hues, and windows of brilliantly
colored glass. The altar, as also the statues of Joseph
and Mary, had a reredos handsomely carved. Outside
the railing was a charming Child in the Manger, lying
on real straw, surrounded by the Virgin, Joseph, the
Magi, the shepherds, and the kings, all in bright-hued
robes, and pleasant-looking cows and asses with red
eyes and green tails.

The singing began before the priest came from the
sacristy. The men sang alone and the women followed,
in an alternating chant that at times rose into a wail
and again had the nasal sound of a bag-pipe. The

96 WHITE SHADOWS

Catholic chants sung thus in Marquesan took on a wild,
barbaric rhythm that thrilled the blood and made the
hair tingle on the scalp.

Bishop David le Cadre appeared in elegant vest-
ments, his eyes grave above a foot-long beard, and the
mass began. The acolyte was very agile in a short red
cassock, below which his naked legs, and bare feet
showed. The people responded often through the mass,
rising, sitting down, and kneeling obediently. Baufre
sat on a chair in the vestibule and added accounts.

Ah Kee Au was the sole communicant at the rail.
KT o cloth was spread, but the bell announced the mys-
tery of transubstantiation, and all bowed their heads
while Ah Kee Au reverently offered his communion to
the welfare of Napoleon, his grandson who had acci-
dentally shot himself.

The service over, the people poured from the church
into the brilliant sunshine of the road, and Ah Kee Au
said to me, "You savee thlat communio' blead b'long
my place. My son makee for pliest." Lam Kai Oo,
pressing forward, offered the communicant a draught of
fiery rum he had obtained by the governor's permis-
sion. He had been told that to give a glass of water
to a communicant, who must of course have fasted and
abstained from any liquid since midnight according to
the law of the Church, was a holy act which brought
the giver a blessing, and so the subtle Chinese thought
to make his blessing greater by offering a drink better
than water.

Ah Kee Au drank with fervor. "My makee holee
thliss morn*/ 5 he said gladly. "Makee Napoleon more
happy/' Sincerity is not a matter of broken .English

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 97

Qr a drink of rum; the poor old grandfather of the
Little Corporal's namesake believed earnestly that Na-
poleon would improve by his sacramental offering. He,
like most Marquesans, took the white man's religion
with little understanding. It is new magic to them,
a comfort, an occupation, and an entertainment* But
who knows the human heart, or understands the soul?

That afternoon while Neo and I lay on my paepae
awaiting the favoring wind which should carry him back
to his own isle, my neighbors gathered from far and
near to lounge the sunny hours away in conversation.
Squatted on the mats, they engaged in serious discus-
sion of the puzzles of religion, appealing to me often
to settle vexing questions which they had long wearied
of asking their better-informed instructors in religious
mysteries.

Their native tongue has no word for religion. Bishop
Dordillon had been obliged to translate it, fc Te mea e
hakatika me te mea e hana mea koaha toitoi i te Etua"
which might be rendered, "Belief in the works and love
of a just God." Etua, often spelled Atua, was the
name of divinity among all Maori peoples, but religion
was so associated with natural things, the phenomena
of nature, of living things, and of the heavens and sea,
that it was part of daily life and needed no word to
distinguish it.

Never were people less able to comprehend the creeds
and formulas in which the religious beliefs of the white
men are clothed. Marquesans are not deep thinkers.
In fact, they have a word, tahoa, which means, "a head-
ache from thinking." Ten years of ardent and nobly
self-sacrificing work by missionaries left the islands still

98 WHITE SHADOWS

without a single soul converted. It was not until the
chiefs hegan to set the seal of their approval on the
new outlandish faiths that the people flocked to the
standard of the cross. And when they did begin to
meditate the doctrines preached to them as necessary
beliefs in order to win salvation, their heads ached in-
deed.

Even after years of faithful church-going many of
my friends still struggled with their doubts, and when
these were propounded to me I was fain to wrinkle
my own brow and ponder deeply.

The burning question as to the color of Adam and
Eve had long been settled. Adam and Eve were brown,
like themselves. But if, as the priests said was most
probable, Adam and Eve had received pardon and were
in heaven, why had their guilt stained all mankind?

Also, would Satan have been able to tempt Eve if
God had not made the tree of knowledge tapu? Was
not knowledge a good thing? What motive had led
the Maker and Knower of all things to do this deed?

What made the angels fall? Pride, said the priests.
Then how did it get into heaven? demanded the per-
plexed.

The resurrection of the body at the last judgment
horrified them. This fact, said the husband of Kake,
had led to the abandonment of the old mariner of bury-
ing corpses in a sitting posture, with the face between
the knees and the hands under the thighs, the whole
bound round with cords. Obviously, a man buried in
such a position would rise deformed. Their dead in
the cemetery on the heights slept now in long coffins
of wood, their limbs at ease. But other and less pre-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 99

meditated interments still befell the unwary islander.

What would God do in cases where sharks had eaten
a Marquesan? And what, when the same shark had
been killed and eaten by other Marquesans? And in
the case of the early Christian forefathers, who were
eaten by men of other tribes, and afterward the canni-
bals eaten in retaliation, and then the last f easter eaten
by sharks? Auel There was a headache query!

At this point in the discussion an aged stranger from
the valley of Taaoa, a withered man whose whole naked
chest was covered with intricate tattooing, laid down his
pipe and artlessly revealed his idea of the communion
service. It was, he thought, a religious cannibalism,
no more. And he was puzzled that his people should
be told that it was wrong to feed on the flesh of a
fellow human creature when they were urged to "eat
the body and drink the blood" of letu Kirito himself.

It was long afterward, in that far-away America so
incomprehensible to my simple savage friends, that I
read beneath the light of an electric lamp a paragraph
in "Folkways," by William Graham Summer, of Yale:

'^Language used in communion about eating the body and
drinking the blood of Christ refers to nothing in our mores and
appeals to nothing in our experience. It comes down from
very remote ages ; very probably from cannibalism*"

The printed page vanished, and before my eyes rose
a vision of my paepae among the breadfruit- and cocoa-
nut-trees, the ring of squatting dusky figures in flicker-
ing sunlit leaf-shade, Kake in her red tunic with the
babe at her breast, Exploding Eggs standing by with
a half -eaten cocoanut, and the many dark eyes in their

100 WHITE SHADOWS

circles of ink fixed upon the shriveled face of the re-
formed cannibal whose head ached with the mysteries
of the white man's religion.

None too soon for me, the talk turned about history,
the tales of which were confused in my guests' minds
with those of the saints. Great Fern insisted that if
the English roasted Joan of Arc they ate her, because
no man would apply live coals, which pain exceedingly,
to any living person, and fire was never placed upon a
human body save to cook it for consumption. This
theory seemed reasonable to most of the listeners, for
since such cruelty as the Marquesans practiced in their
native state was thoughtless and never intentional, the
idea of torture was incomprehensible to their simple
minds.

Malicious Gossip, a comely savage of twenty-five with
false-coffee leaves in her hair, declared, however, that
the governor had told her the English roasted Joan
alive because she was a heretic. The statement was
received with startled protests by those present who
had themselves incurred that charge when they deserted
Catholicism for Protestantism some time earlier.

"Exploding Eggs," said I hastily, "make tea for
all." Every shade vanished from shining eyes when I
produced the bottle of rum and added a spoonful of
flavor to each brimming shellful. All perplexing ques-
tions were forgotten, and simple social pleasure reigned
again on my paepae, while Great Fern explained to
all his idea of the Christian devil.

The Marquesan deity of darkness was Po, a vague
and elemental spirit. But the kuhane anera maaa of
the new religion had definite and fearful attributes ex-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 101

plained by the priests. So Great Fern conceived him
as a kind of cross between a man and a boar, with a
tail like that of a shark, running through the forests
with a bunch of lighted candlenuts and setting fire to
the houses of the wicked.

And the wicked ? Morals as we know them had noth-
ing to do with their sin in his mind. The wicked were
the unkind, those who were cruel to children, wives who
made bad popoi, and whites with rum privileges who
forgot hospitality.

Non-Christians may grin at the efforts of missionaries
among heathens. But the missionaries are the only in-
fluence for good in the islands, the only white men seek-
ing to mitigate the misery and ruin brought by the
white man's system of trade. The extension of civ-
ilized commerce has crushed every natural impulse of
brotherliness, kindness, and generosity, destroyed every
good and clean custom of these children of nature.
Traders and sailors, whalers and soldiers, have been
their enemies.

Whatever the errors of the men of God, they have
given their Eves day by day in unremitting, self-sac-
rificing toil, suffering much to share with these despoiled
people the light of their own faith in a better world
hereafter. In so far as they have failed, they have
failed because they have lacked what proselytizing re-
ligion has always lacked a joy in life that seeks to
make this mundane existence more endurable, a grace
of humor, and a broad simplicity.

Polynesians have always been respecters of authority.
Under their own rule, where priest and king equally
rose to rank because of admired deeds, the tapus of

102 WHITE SHADOWS

the priests had the same force as those of chiefs, and
life was conducted by few and simple rules. Now,
when sect fights sect; when priests assure the people
that France is a Catholic nation and the Governor says
the statement is false; where the Protestant pastor
teaches that Sunday is a day of solemnity and prayer,
and the Frenchmen make it a day of merriment as in
France; where salvation depends on many beliefs be-
wildering and incompatible, the puzzled Marquesan
scratches his head and swings from creed to creed, while
his secret heart clings to the old gods.

The Marquesan had a joyful religion, full of humor
and abandon, dances and chants, and exaltation of na-
ture, of the greatness of their tribe or race, a worship
that was, despite its ghastly rites of human sacrifice, a
stimulus to life.

The efforts of missionaries have killed the joy of
living as they have crushed out the old barbarities, up-
rooting together everything, good and bad, that religion
meant to the native. They have given him instead rites
that mystify him, dogmas he can only dimly understand,
and a little comfort in the miseries brought upon him
by trade.

I have seen a leper alone on his paepae, deep in the
Scriptures, and when I asked him if he got comfort from
them I was answered, "They are strong words for a
weak man, and better than pig." But only a St. Fran-
cis Xavier or a Livingstone, a great moral force, could
lift the people now from the slough of despond in which
they expire.

Upon this people, sparkingly alive, spirited as wild
horses, not depressed as were their conquerors by a

THE SOUTH SEAS 103

heritage of thousands of years of metes and bounds,
religion as forced upon them has been not only a nar-
cotic, but a death potion.

CHAPTER X

The marriage of Malicious Gossip; matrimonial customs of the simple
natives; the domestic difficulties of Haabuani.

MOUTH of God and his wife, Malicious Gos-
sip, soon became intimates of niy paepae.
Coining first to see the marvelous Golden Bed
and to listen to the click-click of the Iron Fingers That
Make Words, they remained to talk, and I found them
both charming.

Both were in their early twenties, ingenuous, gener-
ous, clever, and devoted to each other and to their
friends. Malicious Gossip was beautiful, with soft dark
eyes, clear-cut features, and a grace and lovely line of
figure that in New York would make all heads whirl.
She was all Marquesan, but her husband, Mouth of
God, had white blood in him. Whose it was, he did
not know, for his mother's consort had been an islander.
His mother, a large, stern, and Calvinistic cannibal,
believed in predestination, and spent her days in fear
that she would be among the lost. Her Bible was
ever near, and often, passing their house, I saw her
climb with it into a breadfruit-tree and read a chapter
in the high branches where she could avoid distraction.
They lived in a spacious house set in three acres of
breadfruit and cocoanuts, an ancient grove long in their
family. Often I squatted on their mats, dipping a
gingerly finger in their popoi bowl and drinking the
sweet wine of the half -ripe cocoanut, the while Mouth

104

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 105

of God's mother spoke long and earnestly on the abode
of the damned and the necessity for seeking salvation.
In return, Malicious Gossip spent hours on my paepae
telling nxe of the customs of her people new and old.

"When I was thirteen," she said, "the whalers still
came to Vait-hua, my valley* There came a young
Menike man, straight and bright-eyed, a passenger on
a whaling-ship seeking adventure, I sighed the first
time in my life when I looked on him. He was hand-
some, and not like other men on your ships.

"The kiss you white men give he taught me to like.
He was generous and gentle and good. Months we
dwelt together in a house by the stream in the valley.
When he sailed away at last, as all white men do who
are worth wanting to stay, he tore out my heart. My
milk turned to poison and killed our little child.

"I met long after with Mouth of God. He took
me to his house in the breadfruit-grove. He was good
and gentle, but I was long in learning to love him. It
was the governor who made me know that I was lis
woman. It came about in this manner:

"That governor was one whom all hated for his cold-
ness and cruelty. Mouth of God worked for him in the
Jiouse where medicines are made, having learned to
mix the medicines in a bowl and to wrap cloths about
the wounds of those who were sick: One day, accord-
ing to the custom of white men who rule, the governor
said to Mouth of God that he must send me to the palace
that night.

"When he came home to the house where we lived
together, Mouth of God gave me his word. He said:
'Go to the river and bathe,. Put on your crimson tunic

106 WHITE SHADOWS

and flowers in your hair and go to the palace. The
governor gives a feast to-night, and you are to dance and
to sleep in the governor's bed/ "

Malicious Gossip shuddered, and rocked herself to
and fro upon the mats. "Then I would have killed
him! I cried out to him and said : C I will not go to the
governor! He is a devil. My heart hates him. I am
a Marquesan. What have I to do with a man I hate?'

" c Go!' said Mouth of God, and his eyes were hard
as the black stones of the High Place. 'The governor
asks for you. He is the government. Since when have
Marquesan women said no to the command of the
administrateur?

"I wept, but I took my brightest kahu ropa from
the sandalwood chest my Memke man had given me,
and I went down the path to the stream. As I went
I wept, but my heart was black, and I thought to take
a keen-edged knife beneath my tunic when I went to
the palace. But my feet were not yet wet in the edge
of the water when Mouth of God called to me.

" 'Do not go,' he said.

"I answered: C I will go. You told me to go. I
am on my way/ My tears were salt in my mouth.

"'IVo!' said Mouth of God. He ran, and he came
to me in the pool where I had flung myself. There
in the water he held me, and his arms crushed the breath
from my ribs. 'You will not go!' he said. C I spoke
those words to know if you would go to the governor.
If you had gone quickly, if you had not wept, I would
kill you. You are my woman. No other shall have
you. 9

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 107

"Then I knew that I was his woman, and I forgot my
Menike lover.

"You see," she said to me after a pause, "I would have
gone to the palace. But I would never have come back
to the house of Mouth of God. That was the beginning
of our love. He would yield me to nobody. He told
the governor that I would not come, and he waited to
kill the governor if he must. But the governor laughed,
and said there were many others. Mouth of God and I
were married then by Monsieur Vernier, in the church of
his mother.

"That was the manner of my marriage. The same
as that of the girls in your own island, is it not?"

It was much the same, I said. It differed only in
some slight matters of custom. She listened fascinated
while I described to her our complicated conventions of
courtship, our calling upon young ladies for months and
even years, our gifts, our entertainments, our giving of
rings, our setting of the marriage months far in the fu-
ture, our orange wreaths and veils and bridesmaids.
She found these things almost incredible.

"Marriage here," she said, "may come to a young man
when he does not seek or even expect it. No Marquesan
can marry without the consent of his mother, and often
she marries him to a girl without his even thinking of
such a thing.

"A young man may bring home a girl he does not
know, perhaps a girl he has seen on the beach in the
moonlight, to stay with him that night in his mother's
house. It may be that her beauty and charm will so
please his mother that she will call a family council after

108 WHITE SHADOWS

the two have gone to bed. If the family thinks as the
mother does, they determine to marry the young man to
that girl, and they do so after this fashion:

"Early in the morning, just at dawn, before the young
couple awake, all the women of the household arouse
them with shrieks. They beat their breasts, cut them-
selves with shells, crying loudly, Aue! Aue! Neigh-
bors rush in to see who has died. The youth and the
girl run forth in terror. Then the mother, the grand-
mother and all other women of the house chant the
praises of the girl, singing her beauty, and wailing that
they cannot let her go. They demand with anger
that the son shall not let her go. All the neighbors
cry with them, Aue! Aue! and beat their 'breasts,
until the son, covered with shame, asks the girl to
stay.

"Then her parents are sent the word, and if they do
not object, the girl remains in his house. That is often
the manner of Marquesan marriage."

Yet often, of course, she explained, marriage was not
the outcome of a night's wooing. The young Mar-
quesan frequently brought home a girl who did not in-
stantly win his mother's affection. In that case she
went her way next morning after breakfast, and that
was all. Our regard for chastity was incomprehensible
to Malicious Gossip, instructed though she was in all the
codes of the church. It was to her a creed preached to
others by the whites, like wearing shoes or making the
Sabbath a day of gloom, and though she had been told
that violation of this code meant roasting forever as in a
cannibal pit whose fires were never extinguished, her
mind could perceive no reason for it. She could at-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 109

tach no blame to an act that seemed to her an innocent,
natural, and harmless amusement.

The truth is that no value was, or is, attached to
maidenhood in all Polynesia, the young woman being
left to her own whims without blame or care. Only
deep and sincere attachment holds her at last to the man
she has chosen, and she then follows his wishes in mat-
'ters of fidelity, though still to a large extent remaining
mistress of herself.

The Marquesan woman, however, often denies her
husband the freedom she herself openly enjoys. This
custom persists as a striking survival of polyandry, in
which fidelity under pain of dismissal from the roof-
tree was imposed by the wife on all who shared her af-
fections. $

This was exactly the status of a household not far
from my cabin. Haabuani, master of ceremonies at tfie
dances, the best carver and drum-beater of all Atiiona,
who was of pure Marquesan blood, but spoke French
fluently and earnestly defended the doctrine of the
Pope's infallibility, even coming to actual blows with
a defiant Protestant upon my very paepae explained
.his attitude.

"If I have a friend and he temporarily desires my
wife, Toho, I am glad if she is willing. But my enemy
shall not have that privilege with my consent. I would
be glad to have you look upon her with favor. You are
kind to me. You have treated me as a chief and you
have bought my Jcava bowl. But, ecoutez, Monsieur,
Toho does what she pleases, yet if I toss but a pebble in
another pool she is furious. See, I have the bruises
still of her beating."

110 WHITE SHADOWS

WHh a tearful whine he showed the black-and-blue
imprints of Toho's anger, and made it known to us
that the three piastres he had of me for the kava bowl
had been traced by his wife to the till of Le Brunnec's
store, where Flower, the daughter of Lam Kai Oo, had
spent them for ribbons. Toho in her fury had beaten
him so that for a day and a night he lay groaning upon
the mats.

''That is as it should be/' said Malicious Gossip,
sternly, while her curving lips set in straight lines,
Sex morality means conformity to sex tapus, the world
over.

Free polyandry still exists in many countries I have
seen, and in others its dying out leaves these frag-
mentary srjrvivals. I have visited the tribe of Subanos,
in the west and north of the island of Mindanao in the
Philippine archipelago, where the rich men are polyga-
mists, and the poor still submit to polyandry. Eco-
nomic conditions there bring about the same relations,
under a different guise, as in Europe or America,
where wealthy rakes keep up several establishments,
and many wage-earners support but one prostitute.

Polyandry is found almost exclusively in poor coun-
tries, where there is always a scarcity of females. Thus
we have polyandry founded on a surplus of males
caused by poverty of sustenance. The female is, in
fact, supposed to be the result of a surplus of nutrition;
more boys than girls are born in the country districts
because the city diet is richer, especially in meat and
sugar. It is notable that the families of the pioneers of
western America bore a surprising majority of males.

In the Marquesas, where living was always difficult

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 111

and the diet poor, there were always more men than
women despite the frequent wars in which men were
victims. Another reason was that male children were
saved often when females were killed in the practice of
infanticide, also forced by famine. The overplus of
men made them amenable to the commands of the
women, who often dominated in permanent alliances,
demanding lavishment of wealth and attention from
their husbands,

Yet and this is a most significant fact the father-
right in the child remained the basis of the social system.

Throughout all Australia, Melanesia, and Papuasis
on the east, and America on the west, the mother-right
prevailed among primitive peoples. Children followed
the mother, took their name from her, and inherited
property through her. I have known a Hawaiian
nobleman who, commenting on this fact, said that the
system had merit in that no child could be called a >
bastard, and that the woman, who suffered most, was
rewarded by pride of posterity. He himself, he said,
was the son of a chief tess, but his father, a king, was the
son of a negro cobbler.

The father-right, so familiar to our minds that it
seems to-day almost the only natural or existing social
system, was in fact developed very lately among all
races except the Caucasian and some tribes of the Mon-
gols. Yet in the Marquesas, these islands cut off from
all other peoples through ages of history, the father-
right prevailed in spite of all the difficulties that at-
tended its survival in polyandry.

Each woman had many husbands, whom she ruled.
The true paternity of her children it was impossible to

112 WHITE SHADOWS

ascertain. Yet so tenaciously did the Marquesans
cling to the father-right in the child, that even this fact
could not break it down. One husband was legally the
father of all her children, ostensibly at least the owner
of the household and of such small personal property as
belonged to it under communism. The man remained,
though in name only, the head of the polyandrous
family.

I seemed to see in this curious fact another proof of
the ancient kinship between the first men of my own
race and the prehistoric grandfathers of Malicious Gos-
sip and Haabunai. My savage friends, with their clear
features, their large straight eyes and olive skins,
showed still the traces of their Caucasian blood. Their
f oref atherfcj and mine may have hunted the great winged
lizards together through primeval wildernesses, until,
driven by Vho knows what urge of wanderlust or neces-
sity, certain tribes set out in that drive through Europe
and -A^ia toward America that ended at last, when a
continent sunk beneath their feet, on these islands in
the southern seas.

It was a far flight for fancy to take, from my paepae
in the jungle at the foot of Temetiu, but looking at the
beauty and grace of Malicious Gossip as she sat on my
mats in her crimson pareu> I liked to think that it was
so.

"We are cousins," I said to her, handing her a
freshly-opened cocoanut which Exploding Eggs
brought.

"You are a great chief, but we love you as a blood-
brother," she answered gravely, and lifted the shell
bowl to her lips.

CHAPTER XI

Filling the popoi pits in the season of the breadfruit; legend of the mei;
the secret festival in a hidden valley.

ON" the road to the beach one morning I came
upon Great Fern, my landlord. Garbed in
brilliant yellow pareu, he bore on his shoulders
an immense Jcooka, or basket of cocoanut fiber, filled with
quite two hundred pounds of breadfruit. The superb
muscles stood out on his perfect body, wet with perspir-
ation as though he had come from the river.

"Kaoha, Great Fern!" I said. "Where do you go
with the mei?"

"It is Meinui, the season of the breadfruit/' he re-
plied. "We fill the popoi pit beside my house."

There is a word on the Marquesan tongue vividly
picturing the terrors of famine. It means, "one who is
burned to drive away a drought." In these islands cut
off from the world the very life of the people depends on
the grace of rain. Though the skies had been kind for
several years, not a day passing without a gentle down-
pour, there had been in the past dry periods when even
the hardiest vegetation all but perished. So it came
about that the Marquesan was obliged to improvise a
method of keeping breadfruit for a long time, and be-
coming habituated to sour food he learned to like it,
as many Americans relish ill-smelling cheese and fish
and meat, or drink with pleasure absinthe, bitters, and
other gagging beverages.

114 WHITE SHADOWS

In this season of plenteous breadfruit, therefore,
Great Fern had opened his popoi pit, and was replenish-
ing its supply. A half-dozen who ate from it were
helping him. Only the enthusiasm of the traveler for
a strange sight held me within radius of its odor.

It was sunk in the earth, four feet deep and perhaps
five in diameter, and was only a dozen years old, which
made it a comparatively small and recently acquired
household possession in the eyes of my savage friends.
Mouth of God and Malicious Gossip owned a popoi pit
dug by his grandfather, who was eaten by the men of
Taaoa, and near the house of Vaikehu, a descendant of
the only Marquesan queen, there was a w&ama tehito,
or ancient hole, the origin of which was lost in
the dimness of centuries. It was fifty feet long and
said to be even deeper, though no living Marquesan had
ever tasted its stores, or never would unless dire famine
compelled. It was tapu to the memory of the dead.

All over the valley the filling of the pits for reserve
against need was in progress. Up and down the trails
the men were hastening, bearing the Jcookas filled with
the ripe fruit, large as Edam cheeses and pitted on the
surface like a golf -ball. A breadfruit weighs from two
to eight pounds, and giants like Great Fern or Haab-
uani carried in the Jcookas two or three hundred pounds
for miles on the steep and rocky trails.

In the banana-groves or among thickets of ti the
women were gathering leaves for lining and covering
the pits, while around the center of interest naked chil-
dren ran about, hindering and thinking they were help-
ing, after the manner of children in all lands when fu-
ture feasts are in preparation.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 115

There was a time when each grove of breadfruit had
its owners, who guarded it for their own use, and even
each tree had its allotted proprietor, or perhaps several.
Density of population everywhere causes each mouth-
ful of food to be counted, I have known in Ceylon an
English judge who was called upon to decide the legal
ownership of one 2520th part of ten cocoanut-trees.
But my friends who were filling the popoi pits now
might gather from any tree they pleased. There was
plenty of breadfruit now that there were few people.

Great Fern was culling from a grove on the moun-
tain-side above my house. Taking his stand beneath
one of the stately trees whose freakish branches and
large, glossy, dark-green leaves spread perhaps ninety
feet above his head, he reached the nearer boughs with
an ome%> a very long stick with a forked eiid to which
was attached a small net of cocoanut fiber. Deftly
twisting a fruit from its stem by a dexterous jerk of the
cleft tip, he caught it in the net, and lowered it to the
JcooJca on the ground by his side.

When the best of the fruit within reach was gathered,
he climbed the tree, carrying the omeL Each brown
toe clasped the boughs like a finger, nimble and inde-
pendent of its fellows through long use in grasping
limbs and rocks. This is remarkable of the Mar-
quesans; each toe in the old and industrious is often
separated a half inch from the others, and I have seen
the big toe opposed from the other four like a thumb.
My neighbors picked up small things easily with their
toes, and bent them back out of sight, like a fist, when
squatting.

Gripping a branch firmly with these hand-like feet,

116 WHITE SHADOWS

Great Fern wielded the omei, bringing down other
breadfruit one by one, taking great care not to bruise
them. The coeoanut one may throw eighty feet, with a
twisting motion that lands it upon one end so that it
does not break. But the mei is delicate, and spoils
if roughly handled.

Working in this fashion, Great Fern and his neigh-
bors carried down to the popoi pit perhaps four hun-
dred breadfruit daily, piling them there to be prepared
by the women. Apporo and her companions busied
themselves in piercing each fruit with a sharp stick and
spreading them on the ground to ferment over night.

In the morning, squatted on their haunches and
chanting as they worked, the women scraped the rind
from the fermented mei with cowry shells, and grated
the fruit into the pit which they had lined with banana
leaves. From time to time they stood in the pit and
tramped down the mass of pulp, or thumped it with
wooden clubs.

For two weeks or more the work continued. In the
ancient days much ceremoniousness attended this pro-
vision against future famine, but to-day in Atuoria only
one rule was observed, that forbidding sexual inter-
course by those engaged in filling the pits.

"To break that tapu" said Great Fern, "would mean
sickness and disaster. Any one who ate such popoi
would vomit. The forbidden food cannot be retained
by the stomach."

To vomit during the fortnight occupied in the task of
conserving the breadfruit brought grave suspicion that
the unf ortunate had broken the tapu. When their own

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

savage laws governed them, that unhappy person often
died from fear of discovery and the wrath of the gods.
To guard against such a fate those who were not strong
and well took no part in the task.

This curious connection between sex and the prepara-
tion of food applied in many other cases. A woman
making oil from dried cocoanuts was tapu as to sexual
relations for four or five days, and helieved that if did
she sin, her labor would produce no oil. A man cook-
ing in an oven at night obeyed the same tapw. I do not
know, and was unable to discover, the origin of these
prohibitions. Like many of our own customs, it has
been lost in the mist of ages.

A Tahitian legend of the origin of the breadfruit re-
counts that in ancient times the people subsisted on
araea^ red earth. A couple had a sickly son, their only
child, who day by day slowly grew weaker on the diet
of earth, until the father begged the gods to accept him
as an offering and let him become food for the boy.
From the darkness of the temple the gods at last spoke
to him, granting his prayer. He returned to his wife
and prepared for death, instructing her to bury his
head, heart and stomach at different spots in the forest.

"When you shall hear in the night a sound like that
of a leaf, then of a flower, afterward of an unripe fruit,
and then of a ripe, round fruit falling on the ground,
know that it is I who am become food for our son," he
said, and died.

She obeyed him, and on the second night she heard
the sounds. In the morning she and her son found a
huge and wonderful tree where the stomach had been

118 WHITE SHADOWS

buried. The Tahitians believe that the cocoanut, chest-
nut, and yam miraculously grew from other parts of a
man's corpse.

Breadfruit, according to Percy Smith, was brought
into these islands from Java by the ancestors of the
Polynesians, who left India several centuries before
Christ. They had come to Indonesia rice-eaters, but
there found the breadfruit, "which they took with them
in their great migration into these Pacific islands two
centuries and more after the beginning of this era."

Smith finds in the Tahitian legend proof of this con-
tention. In the Polynesian language araea, the "red
earth" of the tale, is the same as vari, and in Indonesia
there were the words fare or pare., in Malay padi or peri,
and in Malagasy van, all meaning rice. A Rarotongan
legend relates that in Hawaiki two new fruits were
found, and the vari discarded. These fruits were
the breadfruit and the horse-chestnut, neither of which
is a native of Polynesia.

I related these stories of -the mei to Great Fern, who
replied : ff Aue! It may be. The old gods were great,
and all the world is a wonder. As for me, I am a
Christian. The breadfruit ripens, and I fill the popoi
pit."

Great Fern was my friend, and, as he said, a Chris-
tian, yet I fear that he did not tell me all he knew of
the ancient customs. There was an innocence too inno-
cent in his manner when he spoke of them, like that of a
child who would like one to believe that the cat ate the
jam. And on the night when the popoi pits were filled,
pressed down and running over, when they had been
covered with banana leaves and weighed with heavy

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 119

stones, and the season's task was finished, something
occurred that filled my mind with many vague sur-
mises.

I had been awakened at midnight by the crashing fall
of a cocoanut on the iron roof above my head. Often
during the rainy nights I was startled by this sound
of the incessantly falling nuts, that banged and rattled
like round shot over my head. But on this night, as I
composed myself to slumber again, my drowsy ears
were uneasy with another thing, less a sound than an
almost noiseless, thrumming vibration, faint, but dis-
turbing.

I sat up in my Golden Bed, and listened. Explod-
ing Eggs was gone from 'his mat The little house was
silent and empty. Straining my ears I heard it unmis-
takably through the rustling noises of the forest and
the dripping of rain from the eaves. It was the far,
dim, almost inaudible beating of a drum.

Old tales stirred my hair as I stood on my paepae lis-
tening to it. At times I thought it a fancy, again I
heard it and knew that I heard it. At last, wrapping
a pareu about me, I went down my trail to the valley
road. The sound was drowned here by the splashing
chuckle of the stream, but -as I stood undecided in the
pool of darkness beneath a dripping banana I saw a
dark figure slip silently past me, going up toward the
High Place. It was followed by another, moving
through the night like a denser shadow. I went back
to my cabin, scouted my urgent desire to shut and barri-
cade the door, and went to bed. After a long time I
slept.

When I awoke next morning Exploding Eggs wa

120 WHITE SHADOWS

preparing my breakfast as usual, the sunlight streamed
over breadfruit and palm, and the night seemed a
dream. But there were rumors in the village of a
strange dance held by the inhabitants of Nuka-hiva, on
another island, in celebration of the harvest of the mei.
Weird observances were hinted, rites participated in
only by men who danced stark naked, praising the old
gods.

This was a custom of the old days, said Great Fern,
with those too-innocent eyes opened artlessly upon me.
It has ever been the ceremony of Thanks-giving to the
ancient gods, for a bountiful harvest, a propitiation,
and a begging of their continued favor. As for him,
he was a Christian. Such rites were held no more in
Atuona.

I asked no more questions. Thanks-giving to an
omnipotent ruler for the fruits of the harvest season
is almost universal. We have put in a proclamation
and in church services and the slaughter of turkeys
what these children do in dancing, as did Saul of old.

The season's task completed, Great Fern and Ap-
poro sat back well content, having provided excellently
for the future. Certain of their neighbors, however,
filled with ambition and spurred on by the fact that
there was plenty of mei for all with no suspicion of
greediness incurred by excessive possessions, continued
to work until they had filled three pits. These men
were regarded with admiration and some envy, having
gained great honor. "He has three popoi pits/ 3 they
said, as we would speak of a man who owned a superb
jewel or a Velasquez.

The grated breadfruit in the holes was called ma, and

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 121

bore the same relation to popoi as dough bears to bread.
When the ma was sufficiently soured Apporo opened
the pit each morning and took out enough for the day's
provision, replacing the stones on the banana leaves
afterward. The intrusion of insects and lizards was not
considered to injure the flavor*

I often sat on her paepae and watched her prepare
the day's dinner. Putting the rancid mass of ma into
a long wooden trough hollowed out from a tree-trunk,
she added water and mixed it into a paste of the con-
sistency of custard. This paste she wrapped in pwrua
leaves and set to bake in a native oven of rocks that
stood near the pit.

Apporo smoked cigarettes while it baked, perhaps to
measure the time. Marquesans mark off the minutes
by cigarettes, saying, "I will do so-and-so in three ciga-
rettes/* or, "It is two cigarettes from my house to his/'

When the cigarettes were consumed, or when her
housewifely instinct told Apporo that the dish was prop-
erly cooked, back it went into the trough again, and was
mashed with the keatukipopoi, the Phallic pounder of
stone known to all primitive peoples. A pahake, or
wooden bowl about eighteen inches in diameter, re-
ceived it next, and the last step of the process followed.

Taking a fistful of the mass, Apporo placed it in an-
other pahdke, and kneaded it for a long time with her
fingers, using oil from crushed cocoanuts as a lubricant.
And at last, proudly smiling, she set before me a dish
of popoi Tcaoi, the very best popoi that can possibly be
made.

It is a dish to set before a sorcerer. I would as lief
eat bill-poster's paste a year old. It tastes like a sour,

WHITE SHADOWS

acid custard. Yet white men learn to eat it, even to
yearn for it. Captain Capriata, of the schooner
Roberta, which occasionally made port in Atuona Bay,
could digest little else. Give him a bowl of popoi and a
stewed or roasted cat, and his Corsican heart warmed to
the giver.

As bread or meat are to us, so was popoi to my tawny
friends. They ate it every day, sometimes three or
four times a day, and consumed enormous quantities at
a squatting. As the peasant of certain districts of
Europe depends on black bread and cheese, the poor
Irish on potatoes or stirabout, the Scotch on oatmeal,
so the Marquesan satisfies himself with popoi, and likes
it really better than anything else.

Many times, when unable to evade the hospitality of
my neighbors, I squatted with them about the brimming
pahake set on their paepae, and dipped a finger with
them, though they marveled at my lack of appetite. In
the silence considered proper to the serious business of
eating, each dipped index and second finger into the
bowl, and neatly conveyed a portion of the sticky mass
to his mouth, returning the fingers to the bowl cleansed
of the last particle. Little children, beginning to eat
popoi ere they were fairly weaned, put their whole
hands into the dish, and often the lean and mangy curs
that dragged out a wretched dog's existence about the
paepaes were not deprived of their turn.

If one accept the germ theory, one may find in the
popoi bowl a cause for the rapid spread of epidemics
since the whites brought disease to the islands.

CHAPTER XII

A walk in the jungle; the old woman in the breadfruit tree; a night in
a native hut on the mountain.

ATTJONA Valley was dozing, as was its wont in
the afternoons, when the governor, accom-
panied by the guardian of the palace, each
carrying a shot-gun, invited me to go up the mountain
to shoot kukus for dinner. The kuku is a small green
turtle-dove, very common in the islands, and called also
u'u and kukupa. Under any of these names the green-
feathered morsel is excellent eating when broiled or
fried.

I did not take a gun, as, unless hunger demands it, I
do not like to kill. We started out together, climbing
the trail in single file, but the enthusiasm of the chase
soon led my companions into the deeper brush where
the little doves lured them, and only the sharp crack of
an occasional shot wakening the echoes of the cliffs dis-
turbed my solitude.

The dark stillness of the deep valley, where the
shadows of the mountains fell upon groves of cocoanuts
and miles of tangled bush, recalled to me a canon in
New York City, in the center of the world of finance,
gloomy even at noon, the sky-touching buildings dark-
ening the street and the spirits of the dwellers like
mountains. There, when at an unsual moment I had
come from the artificially-lighted cage of a thousand
slaves to money-getting, and found the street for a

123

WHITE SHADOWS

second deserted, no figure of animal or human in its
sombre sweep, I had the same sensation of solitude and
awe as in this jungle. Suddenly a multitude of people
had debouched from many points, and shattered the im-
pression.

But here, in Atuona Valley, the hoot of the owl, the
kouku, which in Malay is the ghost-bird, the burong-
hantu, seemed to deepen the silence. Does not that
word Tiantu, meaning in Malay an evil spirit, have some
obscure connection with our American negro "hant," a
goblin or ghost? Certainly the bird's long and dismal
"Hoo-oo-oo" wailing through the shuddering forest
evoked dim and chilling memories of tales told by
candlelight when I was a child in Maryland.

Here on the lower levels I was still among the
cocoanut-groves. The trail passed through acres of
them, their tall gray columns rising like cathedral arches
eighty feet above a green mat of creeping vines. Again
it dipped into the woods, where one or two palms strug-
gled upward from a clutching jungle. Everywhere I
saw the nuts tied by their natural stems in clumps of
forty or fifty and fastened to limbs which had been
cut and lashed between trees. These had been gathered
by climbers and left thus to be collected for drying into
copra.

Constantly the ripe nuts not yet gathered fell about
me. These heavy missiles, many six or seven pounds in
weight, fell from heights of fifty to one hundred feet
and struck the earth with a dull sound. The roads and
trails were littered with them. They fall every hour of
the day in the tropics, yet I have never seen any one
hurt by them. Narrow escapes I had myself, and I

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 125

have heard of one or two who were severely injured or
even killed by them, but the accidents are entirely out
of proportion to the shots fired by the trees. One be-
comes an expert at dodging, and an instinct draws one's
eyes to the branch about to shed a meij or the palm in-
tending to launch a cocoanut.

As I made my way up the trail, pausing now and
then to look about me, I came upon an old woman lean-
ing feebly on a tall staff. Although it was the hour of
afternoon sleep, she was abroad for some reason, and I
stopped to say "Kaoha" to her. A figure of wretched-
ness she was, bent almost double, her withered, decrepit
limbs clad in a ragged pareu and her lean arms clutch-
ing the stick that bore her weight. She was so aged
that she appeared unable to hear my greeting, and re-
plied only mutteringly, while her bleary eyes gleamed
up at me between fallen lids.

Such miserable age appealed to pity, but as she ap-
peared to wish no aid, I left her leaning on her staff,
and moved farther along the trail, stopping again to
gaze at the shadowed valley below while I mused on the
centuries it had seen and the brief moment of a man's
life. Standing thus, I was like to lose my own, for sud-
denly I heard a whirr like that of a shrapnel shell on
its murderous errand, and at my feet fell a projectile. .

I saw that it was a breadfruit and that I was under
the greatest tree of that variety I had ever seen, a hun-
dred feet high and spreading like a giant oak. In the
topmost branches was the tottering beldame I had
saluted, and in both her hands the staff, a dozen feet
long. She was threshing the fruit from the tree with
astounding energy and agility, her scanty rags blown

;L,G WHITE SHADOWS

by the wind, and her emaciated, naked figure in its
arboreal surroundings like that of an aged ape.

How she held on was a mystery, for she seemed to
lean out from a limb at a right angle, yet she had but a
toe-hold upon it. No part of her body but her feet
touched the branch, nor had she any other support but
that, yet she banged the staff about actively and sent
more six-pounders down, so that I fled without further
reflection.

The score of houses strung along the upper reaches
of Atuona Valley were silent at this hour, and every
where native houses were decaying, their falling walls
and sunken roofs remembering the thousands who once
had their homes here. Occasionally in our own country
we see houses untenanted and falling to ruin, bearing
unmistakable evidences of death or desertion, and I
have followed armies that devastated a countryside and
slew its people or hunted them to the hills, but the first
is a solitary case, and the second, though full of horror,
has at least the element of activity, of moving and strug-
gling life. The rotting homes of the Marquesan peo-
ple speak more eloquently of death than do sunken
graves.

In these vales, which each held a thousand or several
thousand when the blight of the white man came, the
abandoned paepaes are solemn and shrouded witnesses
of the death of a race. The jungle runs orer them, and
only remnants remain of the houses that sat upon them.
Their owners have died, leaving no posterity to inhabit
their homes; neighbors have removed their few chattels,
and the wilderness has claimed its own. In every val-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 127

ley these dark monuments to the benefits of civilization
hide themselves in the thickets.

None treads the stones that held the houses of the
dead. They are tapu; about them flit the veinahae, the
matiahae, and the etuahae, dread vampires and ghosts
that have charge of the corpse and wait to seize the liv-
ing. Well have these ghoulish phantoms feasted;
whole islands are theirs, and soon they will sit upon the
paepae of the last Marquesan.

I reached the top of the gulch and paused to gaze at
its extent. The great hills rose sheer and rugged a mile
away; the cocoanuts ceased at a lower level, and where
I stood the precipices were a mass of wild trees, bushes,
and creepers. From black to lightest green the colors
ran, from smoky crests and gloomy ravines to the
stream singing its way a hundred feet below the trail*

A hundred varieties of flowers poured forth their per-
fume upon the lonely scene. The frangipani, the red
jasmine of delicious odor, and tropical gardenias,
weighted the warm air with their heavy scents.

Beside the trail grew the hutu-t?ee with crimson-
tasseled flowers among broad leaves, and fruit prickly
and pear-shaped. It is a fruit not to be eaten by man,
but immemorially used by lazy fishermen to insure mi-
raculous draughts. Streams are dammed up and the
pears thrown in. Soon the fish become stupified and
float upon the surface to the gaping nets of the pois-
oners. They are not hurt in flavor or edibility.

The keoho, a thorny shrub, caught at my clothes as
I left the trail. Its weapons of defence serve often as
pins for the native, who in the forest improvises for

123 WHITE SHADOWS

himself a hat or umbrella of leaves. Beside me, too,
was the pwtara, a broad-leaved bush and the lemon hi-
biscus, with its big, yellow flower, black-centered, was
twisted through these shrubs and wound about the trunk
of the giant oea, in whose branches the kuku mur-
mured to its mate. Often the flowering vine stopped
my progress. I struggled to free myself from its
clutch as I fought through the mass of vegetation, and
pausing perforce to let my panting lungs gulp the air,
I saw around me ever new and stranger growths otffc
chids, giant creepers, the noni enata, a small bush wife
crimson pears upon it, the toa or ironwood, which gave
deadly clubs in war-time, but now spread its boughs
peacefully amidst the prodigal foliage of its neighbors,

The umbrella fern, mana-mana-hine, was all about.
The ama, the candlenut-tree, shed its oily nuts on the
earth. The puu-epu, the paper mulberry, with yellow
blossoms and cottony, round leaves, jostled pandanus
and hibiscus ; the ena-vao, a wild ginger with edible, but
spicy, cones, and the lacebark-tree, the faufee, which
furnishes cordage from its bark, contested for footing
in the rich earth and fought for the sun that even on the
brightest day never reached their roots.

I staggered through the bush, falling over rotten
trees and struggling in the mass of shrubs and tangled
vines.

Away up here, hidden in the depths of the forest,
there were three or four houses; not the blue-painted
or whitewashed cabins of the settlement, but half -open
native cots, with smoke rising from the fire made in a
circle of stones on the paepaes. The hour of sleep had
passed, and squatted before the troughs men and women

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 129

mashed the ma for the popoi, or idled on the platform
in red and yellow pareus, watching the roasting bread-
fruit. There must be poverty-stricken folk indeed, for
L saw that the houses showed no sign whatever of the
ugliness that the Marquesan has aped from the whites.
Yet neither were they the wretched huts of straw and
thatch which I had seen in the valley and supposed to
be the only remnants of the native architecture,

As I drew nearer, I saw that I had stumbled upon
ich a house as the Marquesan ^ad known in the days
i / his strength, when pride of artistry had created won-
derful and beautiful structures of native wood adorned
in elegant and curious patterns,

It was erected upon a paepae about ten feet high,
reached by a broad and smooth stairway of similar mas-
sive black rocks. The house, long and narrow, covered
all of the paepae but a veranda in front, the edge of
which was fenced witfi f bamboo ingeniously formed
into patterns of squares. A friendly call of "Kaohaf*
in response to mine, summoned me to the family meet*
ing-place, and I mounted the steps with eagerness.

I was met by a stalwart and handsome savage, in
earrings and necklace and scarlet 1 pareu, who rubbed
my nose with his and smelled me ceremoniously, wel-
coming me as an honored guest. Several women fol-
lowed his example, while naked children ran forward
curiously to look at the stranger.

Learning the interest and admiration I felt for his
house, my host displayed it with ill-concealed pride.
Its frame was of the largest-sized bamboos standing up-
right, and faced with hibiscus strips, all lashed hand-
somely and strongly with faufee cordage* Upon this

130 WHITE SHADOWS

framework were set the walls, constructed of canes ar-
ranged in a delicate pattern, the fastenings being of
pur an or other rattan-like creepers, all tied neatly and
regularly. As the residence was only ahout a dozen feet
deep, through three times that length, these walls were
not only attractive but eminently serviceable, the canes
shading the interior, and the interstices between them
admitting ample light and air.

We entered through a low opening and found the one
long chamber spacious, cool, and perfumed with the
forest odors. There were no furnishings save two large
and brilliantly polished cocoanut-tree trunks running
the whole length of the interior, and between them piles
of mats of many designs and of every bright hue that
roots and herbs will yield.

While I admired these, noting their rich colors and
soft, yet firm, texture, a murmurous rustle on the palm-
thatched roof announced the coming of the rain. It
was unthinkable to my host that a stranger should leave
his house at nightfall, and in a downpour that might
become a deluge before morning. To have refused his
invitation had been to leave a pained anil bewildered
household.

Popoi bowls and wooden platters of the roasted
breadfruit were brought within shelter, and while the
hissing rain put out the fires on the paepae the candle-
nuts were lighted and all squatted for the evening meal.
Breadfruit and yams, with a draught of cocoanut milk,
satisfied the hunger created by my arduous climb.
Then the women carried away the empty bowls while
my host and I lay upon the mats and smoked, watching

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 131

the gray slant of the rain through the darkening twi-
light

Few houses like his remained on Hiva-Oe, he said in
reply to my compliments. The people loved the ways
of the whites and longed for homes of redwood planks
and roofs of iron. For himself, he loved the ways of
his fathers, and though yielding as he must to the pay-
ments of taxes and the authority of new laws, he would
not toil in the copra-groves or work on traders* ships.
His father had been a warrior of renown. The uu
was wielded no more, being replaced by the guns of
the whites. The old songs were forgotten. But he,
who had traveled far, who had seen the capital of the
world, Tahiti, and had learned much of the ways of the
foreigner, would have none of them. He would live as
his fathers had lived, and die as they had died.

"It is not long. We vanish like the small fish before
the hunger of the mako. The High Places are broken,
and the pdhue covers our paepaes. It does not matter.
E tupv, te fau; e toro to farero, e mou te taata. The
hibiscus shall grow, the coral shall spread, and man
shall cease. There is sleep on your eyelids, and the
mats are ready,"

His hospitality would give me the place of honor,
despite my protests, and soon I found myself lying be-
tween my host and his wife, while the other members of
the household lay in serried rank beyond her on the
mats that filled the hollow between the palm-trunks.
All slept with the backs of their heads upon one timber,
and the backs of their knees over the other, but I found
comfort on the soft pile between them.

132 WHITE SHADOWS

My companions slumbered peacefully, as I have re-
marked that men do in all countries where the people
live near, and much in, the sea. There was no snoring
or groaning, no convulsive movement of arms or legs,
no grimaces or frowns such as mark the fitful sleep of
most city dwellers and of all of us who worry or burn
the candle at both ends.

I lay listening for some time to their quiet breathing
and the sound of rain drumming on the thatch, but at
last my eyes closed, and only the dawn awoke me.

CHAPTER XIII

The household of Lam Kai Oo; copra making; marvels of the cocoannt-
groves; the sagacity of pigs; and a crab that knows the laws of grafi-
tation.

NEXT morning, after bidding farewell to my
hosts, I set out down the mountain in the early
freshness of a sunny, rain-washed morning. I
followed a trail new to me, a path steep as a stairway,
walled in by the water- jeweled jungle pressing so close
upon me that at times I saw the sky only through the
interlacing fronds of the tree-ferns above my head*

I had gone perhaps a mile without seeing any sign
of human habitation, hearing only the conversation of
the birds and the multitudinous murmuring of leaves,
when a heavy shower began to fall. Pressing on, ham-
pered by my clinging garments and slipping in the path
that had instantly become a miniature torrent, I came
upon a little clearing in which stood a dirty, dark
shanty, like a hovel in the outskirts of Canton, not raised
on a paepae but squat in an acre of mud and the filth of
years.

Two children, three or four years old, played naked
in the muck, and Flower, of the red-gold hair, reputed
the wickedest woman in the Marquesas, ironed her
gowns on the floor of the porch. Raising her head, she
called to me to come in.

This was the house of Lam Kai Oo, the adopted
father of Flower. Seventy-one years old, Lam Kai Oo

134 WHITE SHADOWS

had made this his home since he left the employ of Cap*
tain Hart, the unfortunate American cotton planter,
and here he had buried three native wives. His fourth,
a wofcion.pf twenty years, sat in the shelter of a copra
shed nursing a six-months' infant. Her breasts were
dark blue, almost black, a characteristic of nursing
mothers here.,/

Both the mother and Flower argued with me that I
should make Many Daughters my wife during my stay
in Atuona, and if not the leper lass, then another friend
they had chosen for me. Flower herself had done me
the honor of proposing a temporary alliance, but I had
persuaded her that I was not worthy of her beauty and
talents. Any plea that it was not according to my code,
or even that it was un-Christian, provoked peals of
laughter from all who heard it; sooth to say, the whites
laughed loudest.

Beneath a thatch of palm-leaves Lam Kai Oo was
drying cocoanuts. His withered yellow body straddled
a kind of bench, to which was fixed a sharp-pointed stick
of iron-wood. Seizing each nut in his claw-like hands,
te pushed it against this point, turning and twisting it
as he ripped off the thick and fibrous husk. Then he
cracked each nut in half with a well-directed blow of a
heavy knife. For the best copra-making, the half -nuts
should be placed in the sun, concave side up. As the
meats begin to dry, they shrink away from the shell and
are readily removed, being then copra, the foundation
of the many toilet preparations, soaps and creams, that
are made from cocoa-oil.

As it rains much in the Marquesas, the drying is often
done in ovens, though sun-dried copra commands a

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 135

higher price* Lam Kai Oo was operating sucH an oven,
a simple affair of stones cemented with mud, over which
had been erected a shed of palm-trunks and thatch.
The halved cocoanuts were placed in cups made of
mud and laid on wooden racks above the oven. With
the doors closed, a fire was built in the stone furnace and
fed from the outside with cocoa-husks and brush. Such
an oven does not dry the nuts uniformly. The smoke
turns them dark, and oil made from them contains unde-
desirable creosote. Hot-water pipes are the best source
of heat, except the sun, but Lam Kai Oo was paying
again for his poverty, as the poor man must do ffag world
over.

Forty-four years earlier he had left California, after
having given seven years of his life to building American
railways. The smoke of the Civil War had hardly
cleared away when Captain Hart had persuaded him,
Ah Yu and other California Chinese to come to Hiva-
oa, and put their labor into his cotton plantations*
Cannibalism was common at that date. I asked the old
man if he had witnessed it.

"My see plenty fella eatee," he replied. "Kanaka no
likee Chineeman. Him speak bad meatee."

He told me how on one occasion the Lord had saved
him from drowning. With a lay brother of the Catho-
lic Mission, he had been en route to Vait-hua in a canoe
with many natives. There was to be a church feast, and
Lam Kai Oo was carrying six hundred Chile piastres to
back his skill against the natives in gambling; Lam, of
course, to operate the wheel of supposed chance.

The boat capsized in deep water. The lay brother
could not swim, but was lifted to the keel of the up-

136 WHITE SHADOWS

turned boat, while the others clung to its edges. He
prayed for hours, while the others, lifting their faces
above the storming waves, cried hearty amens to his
supplications. Finally the waves washed them into
shallow water. The brother gave earnest thanks for de-
liverance, but Lam thought that the same magic should
give him back the six hundred pieces of silver that had
gone into the sea.

"My savee plenty Lord helpee you," said he. "Allee
sainee, him hell to live when poor. Him Lord catchee
Chile money, my givee fitty dolla ehurchee."

He sighed despairingly, and fed more cocoa-husks to
his make-shift oven. The shower had passed, moving
in a gray curtain down. ,the valley, and picking my way
through the mire of the kj yard, I followed it in the sun-
shine.

My way led now through the cocoanut-groves that day
and night make the island murmurous with their rus-
tling. They are good company, these lofty, graceful
palms, and I had grown to feel a real affection for
them, such as a man has for his dog. Like myself,
they can not live and flourish long unless they see the
oc'ean. TJieir habit has more tangible reason than
mine ; they are dependent on air and water for life. The
greater the column of water that flows daily up their
stems and evaporates from the leaves, the greater *the
growth and productivity.

Evaporation being in large measure dependent on
free circulation of air, the best sites for cocoanut planta-
tions are on the seashore, exposed to the winds. They
love the sea and will grow with their boles dipped at
high tide in the salt water.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 187

These trunks, three feet in diameter at the base and
tapering smoothly and perfectly to perhaps twelve
inches at 'the top, are in reality no more than pipes for
conveying the water to the thirsty fronds. Cut them
open, and one finds a vast number of hollow reeds, held
together by a resinous pitch and guarded by a bark both
thick and exceedingly hard. There is no brunch or leaf
except at the very tip of the trunk, where a symmetri-
cal and gigantic bouquet of leaves appears, having
plumes a dozen feet long or more, that nod with every
zephyr and in storms sway and lash the tree as if they
were living things.

I used to wonder why these great leates, the sport of
the idlest breeze as well as the fiercest gale, were not
torn from the tree, but when I leSftied to know the cocoa-
nut palm as a dear friend I found that nature had pro-
vided for its survival on the wind-swept beaches with
the same exquisite attention to individual need that is
shown in the electric batteries and lights of cer-
tain fishes, or in the caprification of the fig. A very
fine, but strong, matting, attached to the bark beneath
the stalk, fastened half way around the tree and reach-
ing three feet up the leaf, fixes it firmly to the trunk but
gives it ample freedom to move. , It is a natural brace,
pliable and elastic.

There is scarcely a need' of the islander not supplied
by these amiable trees, Their wood makes the best
spars, furnishes rafters and pillars for native houses,
the knee- and head-rests of their beds, rollers for the big
canoes or whale-boats, fences against wild pig, and f ueL
The leaves make screens and roofs of dwellings, baskets,
and coverings, and in the pagan temples of Tahiti were

188 WHITE SHADOWS

the rosaries or prayer-counters, while on their stiff
stalks the candlenuts are strung to give light for feasts
or for feasting. When the tree is young the network
that holds the leaves is a beautiful silver, as fine as India
paper and glossy; narrow strips of it are used as hair
ornaments and contrast charmingly with the black and
shining locks of the girls. When older, this matting
has every appearance of coarse cotton cloth, and is used
to wrap food, or is made into bags and even rough gar-
ments, specially for fishermen.

The white flowers are small and grow along a branch-
ing stalk, protected by a sheath, and just above the com-
mencement of the leaf. From them is made the cocoa-
nut-brandy that enables the native to forget his sor-
rows. Flowers and nuts in every stage of development
are on the same tree, a year elapsing between the first
blossom and the ripe nut. Long before it is ripe, but
after full size has been attained, the nut contains a pint
or even a quart of delicious juice, called milk, water, or
wine, in different languages. It is clear as spring
water, of a delicate acidity, yet sweet, and no idea of its
taste can be formed from the half -rancid fluid in the ripe
nuts sold in Europe or America. It must be drunk
soon after being taken from the tree to know its full
delights, and must have been gathered at the stage of
growth called Jcoie^ when there is no pulp within the
shell.

Not long after this time the pulp, white as snow, of
the consistency and appearance of the white qf a soft-
boiled egg, forms in a thin layer about the walls of the
nut. This is a delicious food, and from it are made
many dishes, puddings, and cakes. It is no more like

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 339

he shredded cocoanut of commerce than the peach
)lucked from the tree is like the tinned fruit.

The pulp hardens and thickens as time goes on, and
inally is an inch in thickness. Occasionally the meat
Frhen hard and ripe is broiled and eaten. I like it fairly
well served in this fashion.

If left on the tree, the nut will in time fall, and in due
course there begins in it a marvelous process of germina-
tion. A sweet, whitish sponge forms in the interior,
starting from the inner end of the seed enclosed in the
kernel, opposite one of the three eyes in the smaller end
of the nut. This sponge drinks up all the liquid, and,
filling the inside, melts the hard meat, absorbs it, and
turns it into a cellular substance, while a white bud,
hard and powerful, pushes its way through one of the
eyes of the shell, bores through several inches of husk,
and reaches the air and light.

This bud now unfolds green leaves, and at the same
period two other buds, beginning at the same point, find
their way to the two other eyes and pierce them, turning
down instead of up, and forcing their way through the
former husk outside the shell, enter the ground.
Though no knife could cut the shell, the life within
bursts it open, and husk and shell decay and fertilize
the soil beside the new roots, which, within five or six
years, have raised a tree eight or nine feet high, itself
bearing nuts to reproduce their kind again.

All about me on the fertile soil, among decaying
leaves and luxuriant vines, I saw these nuts, carrying
on their mysterious and powerful life in the unheeded
forest depths. Here and there a half -domestic pig was
harrying one with thrusting snout. These pigs, which

140 WHITE SHADOWS

we think stupid, know well that the sun will the sooner
cause a sprouting nut to break open, and they roll the
fallen, nut into the sunlight to hasten their stomachs'
gratification, though with sufficient lahor they can get
to the meat with their teeth.

There is a crab here, too, that could teach even the
wisest, sun-employing pig some tricks in economics,
He is the last word in adaptation to environment, with
an uncanny knowledge that makes the uninformed look
askance at the tale-teller. These crabs climb cocoanut-
trees to procure their favorite food. They dote on
cocoanuts, the ripe, full-meated sort. They are able to
enjoy them by various endeavors demanding strength,
cleverness, an apparent understanding of the effect of
striking an object against a harder one, and of the ve-
locity caused by gravity. Nuts that resist their at-
tempts to open them, they carry to great heights, to
drop them and thus break their shells.

These crabs are called by the scientists Birgos latro,
by the Marquesans tupa, by the Paumotans kaveu, and
by the Tahitians, ua vahi Jiaari. It was a never-fail-
ing entertainment on my walks in the Paumotas to ob-
serve these great creatures, light-brown or reddish in
color, more than two feet in length, stalking about with
their bodies a foot from the ground, supported by two
pairs of central legs. They can exist at least twenty-
four hours without visiting the water, of which they
carry a supply in reservoirs on both sides of the cephalo-
thorax, keeping their gills moist.

They live in large deep burrows in the cocoanut-
groves, which they fill with husks, so that the natives
often rob them to procure a quick supply of fuel

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 141

These dens are contrived for speedy entry when pur-
sued. Terrifying as they appear when surprised on
land, they scuttle for safety either to a hole or to the
sea, with an agility astounding in a creature so awk-
ward in appearance. Though they may be seen about
at all hours of the day, they make forays upon the
cocoanuts only at night.

Darwin first saw these creatures in the Indian Ocean,
and said that they seek the sea every night to moisten
their branchiae. The young are hatched and live for
some time on the sea-coast, venturing far from water
only as they grow older* Darwin said that their feat
in entering the cocoanut "is as curious a case of instinct
as was ever heard of, and likewise of adaptation in struc-
ture between two objects apparently so remote from
each other in the scheme of nature, as a crab and a cocoa-
nut-tree."

When darkness descends and all is quiet, the robber
crab ascends the tree by gripping the bark with his
claws. The rays of my electric flash-light have often
caught him high over my head against the gray palm.
Height does not daunt him. He will go up till he
reaches the nuts, if it be a hundred feet. With his
powerful nippers he severs the stem, choosing always
a nut that is big and ripe. Descending the palm, he '
tears off the fibrous husk, which, at first thought, it
would seem impossible for him to do. He tears it fiber
by fiber, and always from that end under which the
three eye-holes are situated. With these exposed, he
begins hammering on one of them until he has enlarged
the opening so that he can insert one of the sharp points
of his claw into it. By turning his claw backward and

U2 WHITE SHADOWS

forward he scoops out the meat and regales himself
luxuriously.

This is his simplest method, along the line of least
resistance, but let the nut be refractory, and he seizes
it by the point of a claw and beats it against a rock
until he smashes it* This plan failing, he will carry
the stubborn nut to the top of the tree again and hurl
it to the earth to crack it. And if at first he does not
succeed, he will make other trips aloft with the husked
nut, dropping it again and again until at last it is shat-
tered and lies open to his claws.

It is said that if a drop of oil be placed on the long
and delicate antennae of these crabs they die almost in-
stantly. We have a somewhat similar rumor with re-
spect to salt and a bird's tail. Seldom does a robber
crab linger to be oiled, and so other means of destroy-
ing him, or, at least, of guarding against his depreda-
tions, are sought. With the rat, who bites the flower
and gnaws the young nuts, this crab is the principal
enemy of the planter. The tree owner who can afford
it, nails sheets of tin or zinc around the tree a dozen
feet from the earth. Neither rat nor crab can pass this
slippery band, which gives no claw-hold. Thousands
of trees are thus protected, but usually these are in pos-
session of white men, for tin is costly and the native is
poor.

The ingenious native, however, employs another
means of saving the fruit of his groves. He climbs the
palm-trunk in the daytime, and forty feet above the
ground encircles it with dirt and leaves. On his mat
for the night's slumber, he smiles to think of the revenge
he shall have. For the crab ascends and passes the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 143

ouny barrier to select and fell his nuts, but when In
^is backward way be descends, he forgets the curious
bunker he went over and, striking it again, thinks he has
reached the ground. He lets go, and smashes on the
rocks his crafty foe has piled below.

CHAPTER XIV

Visit of Le Moine; the story of Paul Gauguin; his house, and a search for
his grave beneath the white cross of Calvary.

I ROSE one morning from my Golden Bed to find
a stranger quietly smoking a cigarette on my
paepae. Against the jungle background he was
a strangely incongruous figure; a Frenchman, small,
thin, meticulously neat in garments of faded blue denim
and shining high boots. His blue eyes twinkled above
a carefully trimmed beard, and as he rose to meet me,
I observed that the fingers on the cigarette were long,
slender, and nervous.

This was Monsieur Charles Le Moine, the painter
from Vait-hua, whose studio I had invaded in his ab-
sence from that delightful isle. We sat long over
breakfast coffee and cigarettes, I, charmed by his con-
versation, he, eager to hear news of the world he had
forsaken. He had studied in Paris, been governor of
the Gambler Islands, and at last had made his final
home among the palms and orchids of these forgotten
isles. His life had narrowed to his canvases, on which
he sought to interpret Marquesan atmosphere and char-
acter, its beauty and savage lure.

I said to him that it was a pity many great painters
did not come here to put on canvas the fading glamor
and charm of the Marquesas.

"Our craft is too poor," he replied with a sigh. "A
society built on money does not give its artists and
singers the freedom they had in the old days in these

144

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 145

islands, my friend. We are bound to a wheel that
turns relentlessly. Who can come from France and
live here without money? Me, I must work as gen-
darme and school-teacher to be able to paint even here.
One great painter did live in this valley, and died here
Paul Gauguin. He was a master, my friend!"

"Paul Gauguin lived here?" I exclaimed. I had
known, of course, that the great modernist had died in
the Marquesas, but I had never heard in which valley,
and no one in Atuona had spoken of him. In Florence
I had met an artist who possessed two glass doors taken
from Madame Charbonnier's house and said to have
been painted by Gauguin in payment for rent. I had
been in Paris when all artistic France was shuddering
or going into ecstacies over Gauguin's blazing tropic
work, when his massive, crude figures done in violent
tones, filled with sinister power, had been the conver-
sation of galleries and salons.

Strindberg wrote of Gauguin's first exhibition and
expressed dislike for the artist's prepossession with
form, and for the savage models he chose. Gauguin's
reply was :

"Your civilization is your disease; my barbarism is
my restoration to health. I am a savage. Every
human work is a revelation of the individual. All I
have learned from others has been an impediment to
me. I know little, but what I do know is my own."

Now I learned from the lips of Le Moine that this
man had lived and died in my own valley of Atuona,
had perhaps sat on this paepae where we were break-
fasting. Imagination kindled at the thought. "I will
take you to his house," said Le Moine,

146 WHITE SHADOWS

We walked down the road past the governor's palace
until opposite Baufre's depressing abode, where, sev-
eral hundred yards back from a stone wall, sunk in the
inire of the swamp, had for ten years been Gauguin's
home and studio. Nothing remained of it but a few
faint traces rapidly disappearing beneath the jungle
growth.

While we stood in the shade of a cocoanut-palm, gaz-
ing at these, we were joined by Baufre, the shaggy and
drink-ruined Frenchman, in his torn and dirty overalls.

"This weather is devilish/' said Baufre, with a curse,
"It is not as it used to be. The world goes to the devil.
There were seven hundred people in Atuona when I
came here. They are all dead but two hundred, and
there is nobody to help me in my plantation. If I pay
three francs a day, they will not work. If I pay five
francs, they will not work. Suppose I give them rum?
They will work hard for that, for it means forgetting,
but when they drink rum they cannot work at all."

"But you are a philosopher, and absinthe or rum will
cure you," said Le Moine.

ff Mon dieu! I am not a philosopher!" retorted
Baufre. "Of what good is that? Gauguin was a
philosopher, and he is dead and buried on Calvary.
You know how he suffered? His feet and legs were
very bad. Every day he had to tie them up. He could
not wear shoes, but he painted, and drank absinthe, and
injected the morphine into his belly, and painted.

"Sapristi! He was a brave one! Am I not here
over thirty years, and have I met a man like Gauguin?
He never worried. He painted. The dealer in Paris
sent him five hundred francs a month, and he gave away

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 147

everything. He cared only for paint. And now he
is gone, Regardez, here is where his house stood."

We walked through the matted grass that sketched
upon the fertile soil the shape of that house where
Gauguin had painted.

It had been raised from the marsh six feet on trunks
of trees, and was about forty-fire feet long and twenty
wide. The floor was of planks, and one climbed a stair-
way to reach the veranda. The frame of the house was
of wood, but the sides all of split bamboo, with a row
of windows of glass and a roof of cocoanut thatch. The
light entered from the north, and except for a small
chamber for sleeping and a closet for provisions, the
entire house was a studio, a lofty, breeze-swept hall,
the windows high up admitting light, but not the hot
sunshine, and the expanse of bamboo filtering the winds
in their eternal drift from south to north and north to
south.

Below the floor, on the ground, was a room for work
in sculpture, in which medium Gauguin took much in-
terest, using clay and wood, the latter both for bas-
relief and full relief, Gauguin being hampered, Baufre
said, by lack of plasticity in the native clay. Next to 1
this workroom was a shelter for the horse and cart, for
Gauguin had the only wheeled vehicle in the Marquesas.

Baufre exhausted all his rhetoric and used four sheets
of foolscap in his endeavor to make me see these sur-
roundings of the artist, whom he evidently considered
a great man.

"Five hundred francs a month, mon ami, whether he
painted or not! But he Was a worker. Drunk or
sober, he would paint. Oni, I have seen him with a

148 WHITE SHADOWS

bottle of absinthe in him, and still he would paint.
Early in the morning he was at work at his easel in the
studio or under the trees, and every day he painted till
the light was gone. His only use for the cart was to
carry him and his easel and chair to scenes he would
paint. He would shoot that accursed morphine into
his belly when the pain was too bad, and he would drink
wine and talk and paint.

"He had no wife or woman, but he took one in the
way of the white man here now and then. He lived
alone, save for a half-Chinese boy who cooked and
cleaned for him. He never said he was sick. There
was no doctor on this island, for the government was
then at Nuka-hiva, and he had no time to go there.
He suffered terribly, but he never complained. 'Life
is short,' he would say, 'and there is not long to paint.'

"He would not talk politics, but after the light was
gone he would sit at the organ in his studio and make
one cry with his music. When at home he wore only
a pareu, but he would put on trousers when he went
out. He worked and drank and injected his morphine,
and one morning when the boy came he found him dead,
and he was smiling.

"The government hated him because he cursed it for
not letting the natives keep their customs. The church
hated him because he ridiculed it. Still, they buried
him in the Catholic cemetery. I went with the body,
and four Marquesans carried it up the trail.

"The government sold his house to Gedge, and Gedge
sold it to a native, who tore it down for the materials.
It was of no use to any one, for it was built for an
artist.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 149

'Fous savez, mon gar f on, I am not acquainted with
pictures, and have never seen any but his, but I felt
that they were good. They made one feel the sun.
There was in them the soul of these islands. And you
know that Polonaise, with the one eye-glass, that lives
in Papeite, that Krajewsky? Eh bien! he was here to
buy these stone images of gods, and he said that in Paris
they were paying tens of thousands of francs for those
things of Gauguin's he would have given me for the
asking. Ah well! he had the head and he was a phi-
losopher, but he lies up there in Calvary."

"Perhaps," said Le Moine.

"Mon ami" said the shaggy man, "I go to church,
and you and I and Gauguin are the same kind of Catho-
lic. We don't do what we pray for. That man was
smarter than you or me, and the good God will forgive
him whatever he did. He paid everybody, and Chas-
sognal of Papeite found seven hundred francs in a book
where he had carelessly laid it. If he drank, he shared
it, and he paid his women."

"He was an atheist," persisted Le Moine.

"Atheist!" echoed Baufre. "He believed in making
beautiful pictures, and he was not afraid of God or of
the mission. How do you know what God likes?
Mathieu Scallamera built the church here and the mis-
sion houses, and he is dead, and all his family are lepers.
Did God do that? NonI Nont You and I know
nothing about that. You like to drink. Your woman
is tattooed, and we are both men and bad. Come and
have a drink?"

We left him beside the road and walked slowly be-
neath the arch of trees toward the mountain whose

150 WHITE SHADOWS

summit was crowned by the white cross of Calvary
graveyard. ^

"He drank too much, he took morphine, he was mor-
tally ill, and yet he painted. Those chaps who have to
have leisure and sandal-wood censors might learn from
that man/' said Le Moine. "He was a pagan and lie
saw nature with the eyes of a pagan god, and he painted
it as he saw it."

I reminded him of James Huneker's words about
Gauguin: "He is yet for the majority, though he may
be the Paint God of the Twentieth century. Paint
was his passion. With all his realism, he was a sym-
bolist, a master of decoration."

Past the governor's mansion, we turned sharply up
the hilL Apart from all other dwellings, on a knoll,
stood a Marquesan house. As we followed the steep
trail past it, I called, "Kaoha!"

ff l hea?" said a woman, "Karavario? Where do you
go? To Calvary?"

There was a sad astonishment in her tone, that we
should make the arduous climb to the cemetery where
no dead of ours lay interred.

A fairly broad trail wound about the hill, the trail
over which the dead and the mourners go, and the way
was through a vast cocoanut-orchard, the trees planted
with absolute regularity lifting their waving fronds
seventy or eighty feet above the earth. There was no
underbrush between the tall gray columns of the palms,
only a twisted vegetation covered the ground, and the
red volcanic soil of the trail, cutting through the green,
was like a smear of blood.

The road was long and hot. Halting near the sum-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 151

mit, we looked upward, and I was struck with emotion
as when in the courtyard I saw the group of the cruci-
fixion. A cross forty feet high, with a Christ nailed
upon it, all snow-white, stood up against the deep blue
sky. It was like a note of organ music in the great
gray cathedral of the palms.

Another forty minutes climbing brought us to the
foot of the white symbol. A half -acre within white-
washed palings, like any country graveyard, lay on the
summit of the mountain.

To find Gauguin's grave we began at the entrance
and searched row by row. The graves were those of
natives, mounds marked by small stones along the sides,
with crosses of rusted iron filigree showing skulls and
other symbols of death, and a name painted in white,
mildewing away. Farther on were tombs of stone and
cement, primitive and massive, defying the elements.
Upon one was graven, fe Ci Git Darnel Vaimd, Kata-
kita, 1867-190T. R.I.P." The grave of a catechist, a
native assistant to the priests. Beneath another lay
"August Jorss," he who had ordered the Golden Bed
in which I slept. Most conspicuous of all was a mauso-
leum surrounded by a high, black, iron railing brought
from France. On this I climbed to read while perched
on the points:

"Id repose Mg. Illustrissime et Beverendisdme Hog,
Jh. Martin," and much more in Latin and French. It
was the imposing grave of the Bishop of Uranopolis,
vicar-apostolic to the Marquesas, predecessor to Bishop
le Cadre, who had no pride and whom all called plain
Father David.

Suddenly rain poured down upon us, and looking

152 WHITE SHADOWS

about to find a shelter we saw a straw penthouse over a
new and empty grave lined with stones. We huddled
beneath it, our faces toward the sea, and while the heavy
rain splashed above our heads and water rushed down
the slope, we gazed in silence at the magnificent pano-
rama below.

We were directly above the Bay of Traitors, that
arm of the sea which curved into the little bays of Taka-
Uka and Atuona. At one side, a mere pinnacle
through the vapor about his throat, rose the rugged
head of Temetiu, and ranged below him the black fast-
nesses of the valleys he commands. In the foreground
the cocoas, from the rocky headlands to the gate of
Calvary, stood like an army bearing palms of victory.
In rows and circles, plats and masses, the gray trunks
followed one another from sea to mountain, yielding
themselves to the storm, swaying gently, and by some
trick of wind and rain seeming to march toward the
cross-crowned summit.

The flimsy thatch under which we crouched, put up
only to keep the sun from the grave-digger, bent to
north and south, and threatened to wing away. But
suddenly the shower ran away in a minute, as if it had
an engagement elsewhere, and the sun shone more
brightly in the rain-washed air.

We continued our search, but uselessly. Hohine and
Mupui had advertisement of their last mortal residence,
but not Gauguin. We found an earring on one little
tomb where a mother had laid her child, and on several
those courownes des perles, stiff, ugly wreaths brought
from France, with "Sincere Regrets" in raised beads,
speaking pityfully of the longing of the simple islanders

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 153

to do honor to the memory of their loved ones. But
the grave of Gauguin, the great painter, was unmarked,
If a board had been placed at its head when he was
buried, it had rotted away, and nothing was left to indi-
cate where he was lying.

The hibiscus was blood-red on the sunken graves, and
cocoanuts sprouted in the tangled grass. Palms shut
out from the half -acre had dropped their nuts within
it, and the soil, rich in the ashes of man, was endeavoring
to bring forth fairer fruit than headstones and iron
crosses. The pdhue, a lovely, long, creeping vine that
wanders on the beaches to the edge of the tides, had
crawled over many graves, and its flowers, like morning-
glories, hung their purple bells on the humbler spots
that no hand sought to clear.

Perhaps under these is the dust of the painter who,
more than any other man, made the Marquesas known
to the world of Europe.

CHAPTER XV

Death of Aumia; funeral chant and burial customs; causes for the death

of a race.

ON the paepae of a poor cabin near my own lived
two women, Aumia and Taipi, in the last
stages of consumption. Aumia had been, only
a few months earlier, the beauty of the island.

"She was one of the gayest," said Haabunai, "but
the pokoko has taken her."

She was pitifully thin when I first saw her, lying all
day on a heap of mats, with Taipi beside her, both
coughing, coughing. An epidemic of colds had seized
Atuona, brought, most probably, by the schooner
Papeite, for no other had arrived since the Morning
Star. Aumia coughed at night, her neighbor took it
up, and then, like laughter in a school, it became im-
possible to resist, and down to the beach and up to the
heights the valley echoed with the distressing sounds.
So, a breadfruit season ago, had Aumia coughed for
the first time, and the way she was going would be
followed by many of my neighbors.

I stopped every day to chat a moment with Aumia,
and to bring her the jam or marmalade she liked, and
was too poor to buy from the trader's store. She asked
me this day if I had seen her grave. SLe had heard
I had visited the cemetery, and I must describe it to
her. It was the grave over which Le Moine and I
had crouched from the storm.

154

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 155

Aumia's husband and Haabunai, with Great Fern,
had dug it and paved it a couple of days ago, and her
husband had given the others a pig for their work,
slaughtering it on the tomb of the Bishop of Uranopolis.
No thought of profanation had entered their minds;
it was convenient to lay the pig over the imposing monu-
ment, with a man on either side holding the beast and
the butcher free-handed. The carcass had been de-
nuded of hair in a pail of hot water and buried under-
ground with fire below and above him. When the meat
was well done, I had a, portion of it, and Sister Sera-
poline, who had come in her black nun's habit to console
Aumia with the promises of the church, ate with us,
and accepted a haunch for the nun's house.

"Aumia is able to eat pig, and yet they have made
her grave/ 5 I said.

"Oh, c*est fa!^ replied the nun, holding the haunch*
carefully* "That is the custom. Always they used to
dig them near the house, so that the sick person might
see the grave, and in its digging the sick had much to
say, and enjoyed it. Now, grace a dieu! if Catholics,
they are buried in consecrated ground where the body
may rest serene until the trumpet sounds the final judg-
ment. Death is terrible, but these Marquesans make
no more of it than of a journey to another island, and
much less than of a voyage to Tahiti, They die as
peacefully as a good Catholic who is sure of his crown
in Heaven. And as they are children, only children,
the wisest or the worst of them, the Good God will know
how to count their sins* It is those who scandalize
them who shall pay dear, those wicked whites who have
forsaken God., or who worship him in false temples.'*

156 WHITE SHADOWS

The coffin of Aumia was then beside the house, turned
over so that rain might not make it unpresentable. She
had asked for it weeks before. To the Marquesan his
coffin is as important as, to us, the house the newly-
married pair are to live in. These people know that
almost every foot of their land holds the bones or dust
of a corpse, and this remnant of a race, overwhelmed
by tragedy, can look on death only as a relief from the
oppression of alien and unsympathetic white men,
They go to the land of the tupapaus as calmly as to
sleep.

"I have never seen a Marquesan afraid to die," said
Sister Serapoline. "I have been at the side of many in
their last moments. It is a terrible thing to die, but
they have no fear at all."

The husband of Aumia, a jolly fellow of thirty, was
practising on a drum for the entertainment of his wife,
He said that the corpse of his grandfather, a chief, had
been oiled and kept about the house until it became
mummified. This, he said, had been quite the custom,
The body was washed very thoroughly, and rubbed with
cocoanut-oil. It was laid in the sun, and members of
the family appointed to turn it many times a day, so
that all parts might be subjected to an even heat. The
anointing with oil was repeated several times daily,
Weeks or months of this process reduced the corpse
to a mummified condition, and if it were the body of
a chief it was then put in his canoe and kept for years
in a ceremonial way. But no mark was ever placed
to show where the dead were buried, and there were
no funeral ceremonies. Better that none knew where

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 157

the body was laid and that the chosen friends who car-
ried it to the sepulchre forgot the spot.

In the very old days the Marquesans interred the
dead secretly in the night at the foot of great trees.
Or they carried the hodies to the mountains and in a
rocky hole shaded by trees covered them over and made
the grave as mtich as possible like the surrounding soil.
The secret of the burial-place was kept inviolate.
Aumia's husband related an instance of a man who in
the darkest night climbed a supposedly inaccessible
precipice carrying the body of his young wife lashed
to his back, to place it carefully on a lofty shelf and
descend safely.

These precautions came probably from a fear of prof-
anation of the dead, perhaps of their being eaten by a
victorious enemy. To devastate the cemeteries and
temples of the foe was an aim of every invading tribe.
It was considered that mutilating a corpse injured the
soul that had fled from it.

Afraid of no living enemy nor of the sea, meeting
the shark in his own element and worsting him, fear-
lessly enduring the thrust of the fatal spear when an
accident of battle left him defenseless, the Marquesan
warrior, as much as the youngest child, had an unut-
terable horror of their own dead and of burial-places,
as of the demons who hovered about them.

Christianity has made no change in this, for it, too.
is encumbered with such fears. Who of us but dreads
to pass a graveyard at night, though even to ourselves
we deny the fear? Banshees, werwolves and devils, the
blessed candles lit to keep away the Evil One, or even

158 WHITE SHADOWS

to guard against wandering souls on certain feasts of
the dead, were all part of my childhood. So to the
Marquesan are the goblins that cause him to refuse to
go into silent places alone at night, and often make
him cower in fear on his own mats, a pareu over his head,
in terror of the unknown.

But death when it comes to him now is nothing, or it
is a going to sleep at the end of a sad day. Aumia, eat-
ing her burial meats and looking with pleasure at her
coffin, carefully and beautifully built by her husband's
hands, smiled at me as serenely as a child. But the
melancholy sound of her coughing followed me up the
trail to the House of the Golden Bed.

It was barely daylight next morning when I awoke,
a soft, delicious air stirring the breadfruit leaves. I
plunged into the river, and returning to my house was
about to dress that is, to put on my pareu when a
shriek arose from the forest. It was sudden, sharp, and
agonizing.

ff Aumia mate i havaii" said Exploding Eggs, ap-
proaching to build the fire. Literally he said, "Aumia
is dead and gone below," for the Marquesans locate the
spirit world below the earth's surface, as they do the soul
below the belt.

The wailing was accompanied shortly by a sound of
hammering on boards.

"The corpse goes into the coffin," said Exploding
Eggs. The first nail had been driven but a moment
after Aumia's last breath.

All day the neighborhood was melancholy with
the cries from the house, All the lamentations were in

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 159

a certain tone, as if struck from the same instrument
by the hand of sorrow. Each visitor to the house
shrieked in the same manner, and all present accom-
panied her, so that for ten minutes after each new
mourner arrived a chorus of loud wails and moans as-
sailed my ears. I had never known such a heart-rend-
ing exhibition of grief.

But the sorrow of these friends of Aumia was not
genuine. It could not be; it was too dramatic. When
they left the house the mourners laughed and lit ciga-
rettes and pipes. If no new visitor came they fell to
chatting and smoking, but the sight of a fresh and un-
harrowed person started them off again in their me-
chanical, though nerve-racking, cry,

I had known Aumia well, and at noon, desiring to ob-
serve the proprieties, I stepped upon the paepae of her
home.

"She loved the Memkef* shouted the old women in
chorus, and they threw themselves upon me and smelt
me and made as if I had been one of the dead's hus-
bands. The followed me up the trail to my cabin and
sat on my paepae wailing and shrieking. It was some
time before I realized that their poignant sorrow should
force consolation from me. There was not a moan as
the rum went round*

I had puzzled at the exact repetition of their plaint.
Harrowing as it was, the sounds were almost like a reci-
tation of the alphabet. A woman who had adopted me
as her nephew said they called it the fe Ue Jiaaneinti"
That, literally, is "to make a weeping on the side."
The etiquette of it was intricate and precise. Each

160 WHITE SHADOWS

vowel was memorized with exactness. It ran, as my
adopted aunt repeated it over her shell of consolation,
thus:

"Ke ke ke ke fce ke ke ke ke!
Aaaa<aaa.aaaaaaa!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
Oooooooooo'ooooo!
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!"

To omit a vowel, to say too many, or to mix their
order, would be disrespect to the spirit of the dead, and
a reflection on the mourner. Nine times the "ke," four-
teen "a's," fifteen "e V eighteen "i's" and fifteen "o's"
and Vs."

Aumia was carried to Calvary in the afternoon and
put in the grave for which the pig had been paid. So
strongly did the old feeling still prevail that only three
or four of her friends could be persuaded by the nuns to
accompany the coffin up the trail.

Exploding Egg's consignment of Aumia to Havaii,
the underworld, spoke strongly of the clinging of his
people to their old beliefs in the destiny of the spirit
after death. They share with the Ainos of Japan a
people to which they have many likenesses, being of the
same division of man a faith in a subterranean future,

Does not Socrates, in the dialogues of Plato, often
speak of "going to the world below," where he hopes to
find real wisdom?

Havaii or Havaiki is, of course, the fabled place
whence came the Polynesians, as it is also the name of
that underworld to which their spirits return after

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 161

death. One might read into this fact a dim groping of
the Marquesan mind toward "From dust he came, to
dust retumeth," or, more likely, a longing of the exiled
people for the old home they had abandoned. Ethnolo-
gists believe that the name refers to Java, the tarrying-
point of the great migration of Caucasians from South
Asia toward Polynesia and New Zealand, or to Savaii,
a Samoan island whence the emigrants later dispersed.

Whatever the origin of the word, to-day it conveys
to the Marquesan mind only that vague region where
the dead go. In it there is no suffering, either for good
or bad souls. It is simply the place where the dead go.
It is ruled by Po, the Darkness.

There is, however, a paradise in an island in the
clouds, where beautiful girls and great bowls of kava,
with pigs roasted to a turn, await the good and brave.
The old priests claimed to be able to help one from Po
to this happy abode, but the living relatives of the de-
parted spirit had to pay a heavy price for their services.
The Christianized Marquesan fancies that he finds these
old beliefs revived when Pere David tells him of purga-
tory, from which prayers and certain good acts help
one's friends, or may be laid up in advance against the
day when one must himself descend to that middle state
of souls.

All Marquesans live in tHe shadow of that day. They
see it without fear, but with a melancholy so tragic and
deep that the sorrow of it is indescribable.

"I have seen many go as Aumia has gone/' said
Father David to me. "All these lovable races are dy-
ing* 11 Polynesia is passing. Some day the whites

162 WHITE SHADOWS

here will be left alone amid the ruins of plantations and
houses, unless they bring in an alien race to take the
places of the dead."

A hundred years ago there were a hundred and sixty
thousand Marquesans in these islands. Twenty years
ago there were four thousand. To-day I am con-
vinced that there remain not twenty-one hundred.

A century ago an American naval captain reckoned
nineteen thousand fighting men on the island of Nuka-
hiva alone. In a valley where three thousand warriors
opposed him, there are to-day four adults. I visited
Hanamate, an hour from Atuona, where fifty years
ago hundreds of natives lived. Not one survived to
greet me.

Consumption came first to Hanavave, on the island
of Fatu-hiva. One of the tribe of merciless American
whaling captains having sent ashore a sailor dying of
tuberculosis, the tattooed cannibals received him in a
Christ-like manner, soothed his last hours, and breathed
the germs that have carried off more than four-fifths of
their race, and to-day are killing the remnant.

The white man brought the Chinese, and with them
leprosy. The Chinese were imported to aid the white
in stealing the native land of the Marquesan, and to
keep the Chinese contented, opium was brought with
him. Finding it eagerly craved by the ignorant native,
the foolish white fastened this vice also upon his other
desired slave. The French Government, for forty
thousand francs* licensed an opium farmer to sell the
drug still faster, and not until alarmed by the results
and shamed by the outcry in Europe, did it forbid the
devastating narcotic. Too late I

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 163

Smallpox came with a Peruvian slave-ship that stole
thousands of the islanders and carried them off to work
out their lives for the white in his own country. This
ship left another more dread disease, which raged in the
islands as a virulent epidemic, instead of running the
slow chronic course it does nowadays when all the world
has been poisoned by it.

The healthy Marquesans had no anti-toxins in their
pure blood to overcome the diseases which with us, hard-
ened Europeans and descendants of Europeans, are
not deadly. Here they raged and destroyed hundreds
in a few days or weeks.

The survivors of these pestilences, seeing their homes
and villages desolated, their friends dying, their peo-
ple perishing, supposed that these curses were inflicted
upon them by the God of the foreigners and by the mis-
sionaries, who said that they were his servant. In their
misery, they not only refused to listen to the gospels,
but accused the missionaries in prayer before their own
god, begging to be saved from them. Often when the
missionaries appeared to speak to the people, the de-
formed and dying were brought out and laid in rows be-
fore them, as evidences of the evilness and cruelty of
their white god.

But after one has advanced all tangible reasons and
causes for the depopulation of the Marquesas, there re-
mains another, mysterious, intangible, but it may be,
more potent than the others. The coming of the white
has been deadly to all copper-colored races everywhere
in the world. The black, the yellow, the Malay, the
Asiatic and the negro flourish beside the white; the
Polynesian and the red races of America perished or are

164 WHITE SHADOWS

going fast. The numbers of those dead from war and
epidemics leave still lacking the full explanation of the
fearful facts. Seek as far as you will, pile up figures
and causes and prove them correct; there still remains
to take into account the shadow of the white on the red.
Prescott says:

The American Indian has something peculiarly sensitive in
his nature. He shrinks instinctively from the rude touch of a
foreign hand. Even when this foreign influence comes in the
form of civilization, he seems to sink and pine under it. It has
been so with the Mexicans* Under the Spanish domination
their numbers have silently melted away. Their energies are
broken. They live under a better system of laws, a more
assured tranquillity, a purer faith. But all does not avail.
Their civilization was of the hardy character that belongs to
the wilderness. Their hardy virtues were all their own. They
refused to submit to European culture to be engrafted on a
foreign stock.

Free! Understand that well, it is the deep commandment,
dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to be free. Freedom is
the one purpose, wisely aimed at or unwisely, of all man's
struggles, toilings, and sufferings, in this earth.

I am persuaded that the Polynesians, from Hawaii
to Tahiti, are dying because of the suppression of the
play-instinct, an instinct that had its expression in most
of their customs and occupations. Their dancing, their
tattooing, their chanting, their religious rites, and even
their warfare, had very visible elements of humor and
joyousness. They were essentially a happy people,
full of dramatic feeling, emotional, and with a keen
sense of the ridiculous. The rule of the trader crushed
all these native feelings.

To this restraint was added the burden of the effort

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 165

^

to live. With the entire Marquesan economic and social
system disrupted, food was not so easily procurable, and
they were driven to work by commands, taxes, fines,
and the novel and killing incentives of rum and opium.
The whites taught the men to sell their lives, and the
women to sell their charms.

Happiness and health were destroyed because the
white man came here only to gratify his cupidity. The
priests could bring no inspiration sufficient to overcome
the degradation caused by the traders. The Marquesan
saw that Jesus had small influence over their rulers.
Civilization lost its opportunity because it gave precept,
but no example.

Even to-day, one white man in a valley sets the stand-
ard of sobriety, of kindness, and honor. Jensen, the
frank and handsome Dane who works for the Germans
at Taka-Uka who was in the breadline in New York and
swears he will never return to civilization, told me that
when he kept a store in Hanamenu, near Atuona, to
serve the bare handful of unexterminated tribesmen
there, the people imitated him in everything, his clothes,
his gestures, his least-studied actions.

"I was the only white. I planted a fern in a box.
Every one came to my store and, feigning other reasons,
asked for boxes. Soon every paepae had its box of
ferns. I asked a man to snare four or five goats for me
in the hills. They were the first goats tethered or en-
closed in the valley. Within a week the mountains were
harried for goats, and the village was noisy with their
bleating. I ate my goats ; they ate theirs. Not one was
left. When I forsook Hanamenu, the whole population
moved with me. Sure, I was decent to them, that was all.

166 WHITE SHADOWS

"I never want to see the white man's country again*
I have starved in the big cities, and worked like a dog
for the banana trust in the West Indies. I have begged
a cup of coffee in San Francisco, and been fanned by a
cop's club. Here I make almost nothing, I have many
friends and no superiors, and I am happy."

Had these lovable savages had a few fine souls to lead
them, to shield them from the dregs of civilization
heaped on them for a century, they might have devel-
oped into a wonder race to set a pace in beauty, courage,
and natural power that would have surprised and helped
Europe.

They needed no physical regeneration. They were
better born into health and purity bloody as were some
of their customs than most of us. Their bodies had
not become a burden on the soul, but, light and strong
and unrestrained, were a part of it. They did not know
that they had bodies; they only leaped, danced, flung
themselves in and out of the sea, part of a large, happy,
and harmonious universe.

If to that superb, almost perfect, physical base that
nature had given these Marquesans, to that sweetness
simplicity, generosity, and trust acknowledged by all
who know them, there could have been added a knowl-
edge of the things we have learned; if by example and
kindness they could have been given rounded and in-
formed intelligence, what living there would have been
in these islands!

All they needed was a brotHer who walked in the sun-
light and showed the way.

CHAPTER XVI

A savage dance, a drama of the sea, of danger and feasting; the rape of

the lettuce.

DRUMS were beating all the morning, thrilling
the valley and mountain-sides with their bar-
baric boom-boom. The savage beat of them
quickened the blood, stirring memories older than man-
kind, waking wild and primitive instincts- Toho's eyes
gleamed, and her toes curled and uncurled like those
of a cat, while she told me that the afternoon would
see an old dance, a drama of the sea, of war, and feast-
ing such as the islands had known before the whites
came.

The air thrummed with the resonance of the drums*
All morning I sat alone on my paepae^ hearing them
beat, The sound carried one back to the days when
men first tied the skins of animals about hollow tree-
trunks and thumped them to call the naked tribes to-
gether under the oaks of England. Those great drums
beaten by the hands of Haabunai and Song of the
Nightingale made one want to be a savage, to throw
a spear, to dance in the moonlight.

Erase thirty years, and hear it in Atuona when the
"long pig that speaks** was being carried through the
jungle to the dark High Place! Then it was the thun-
der of the heavens, the voice of the old gods hungry for
the flesh of their enemies.

We who have become refined and diverse in our musi-

168 WHITE SHADOWS

cal expression, using a dozen or scores of instruments to
interpret our subtle emotions, cannot know the primitive
and savage exaltation that surges through the veins
when the war-drum beats. To the Marquesans it has
ever been a summons to action, an inspiration to daring
and bloody deeds, the call of the war-gods, the frenzy
of the dance. Born of the thunder, speaking with the
voice of the storm and the cataract, it rouses in man
the beast with quivering nostrils and lashing tail who
was part of the forest and the night.

Music is ever an expression of the moods and morals
of its time. The bugle and the fife share with the drum
the rousing of martial spirit in our armies to-day, but
to our savage ancestors the drum was supreme. Primi-
tive man expressed his harmony with nature by imi-
tating its sounds. He struck his own body or a hollow
log covered with skin. Uncivilized peoples crack their
fingers, snap their thighs, or strike the ground with their
feet to furnish music for impromptu dancing. In
Tonga they crack their fingers; in Tahiti they pound
the earth with the soles of their feet; here in Atuona
they clap hands. The Marquesans have, too, bamboo
drums, long sections of the hollow reed, slit, and beaten
r* ith sticks. For calling boats and for signaling they
use the conch-shell, the same that sounded when "the
Tritons blew their wreathed horn." They also have
the jew's-harp, an instrument common to all Poly-
nesia; sometimes a strip of bark held between the teeth,
sometimes a bow of wood strung with gut.

Civilization is a process of making life more complex
and subtle. We have the piano, the violin, the or-
chestra. Yet we also have rag4ime, which is a reaction

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 169

from the nervous tension of American commercial life,
a swinging back to the old days when man, though a
brute, was free. There is release and exhilaration in
the barbaric, syncopated songs and in the animal-like
motions of the jazz dances with their wild and passion-
ate attitudes, their unrestrained rhythms, and their di-
rect appeal to sex. These rag-time melodies, coming
straight from the jungles of Africa through the negro,
call to impulses in man that are stifled in big cities,
in factory and slum and the nerve-wearing struggle of
business.

So in the dance my Marquesan neighbors returned to
the old ways and expressed emotions dying under the
rule of an alien people. With the, making light of
their reverenced tapus, the proving that their gods were
powerless, and the ending of their tribal life, the dance
degraded. They did not care to dance now that their
joy in life was gone. But the new and jolly governor,
craving amusement, sought to revive it for his pleasure.
So the drums were beating on the palace lawn, and after-
noon found the trails gay with pareus and brilliant
shawls as the natives came down from their paepaes
to the seat of government.

Chief Kekela Avaua, adopted son of the old Kekela,
and head man of the Paamau district, called for me.
He was a dignified and important man of forty-five
years, with handsome patterns in tattooing on his legs,
and Dundreary whiskers. He was quite modishly
dressed in brown linen, beneath which showed his bare,
prehensile-toed feet.

Kirio Patuhamane, a marvelous specimen of scrolled
ink-marks from head to foot, who sported Burnside

170 WHITE SHADOWS

whiskers, an English cricket cap, and a scarlet loin-
cloth, accompanied us down the road.

A hundred natives were squatting in the garden of
the palace, and rum and wine were being handed out
when we arrived. Haabunai and Song of the Nightin-
gale, the man under sentence for making palm brandy,
were once more the distributors, and took a glass often,
The people had thawed since the dance at the governor's
inauguration. As Kirio Patuhamane explained, they
had waited to observe the disposition of their new ruler,
the last having been severe, dispensing no rum save
for his own selfish gain, and having a wife who despised
them.

My tawny feminine friends resented keenly white
women's airs of superiority, and many were the cold
glances cast by Malicious Gossip, Apporo, and Flower
at the stiffly gowned Madame Bapp, who sat on the
yeranda drinking absinthe. They scorned her, because
she beat her husband if he but looked at one of them,
though he owned a store and desired their custom.
Poor Madame Bapp! She thought hex* little man very
attractive, and she lived in misery because of the openly-
displayed charms of his customers. She loved him, and
when jealous she sought the absinthe bottle and soon
was busy with whip and broom on the miserable Bapp,
who sought to flee. It was useless; she had looked to
doors and windows, and he must take a painful punish-
ment, the while the crockery smashed and all Atuona
Valley listened on its paepaes, laughing and well know-
ing that the little man had given no cause for jealousy.

She greeted me with cold politeness when I mounted
to the veranda, and the governor dispensed glasses of

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 171

"Dr. Funk/' a drink known to all the South Seas. Its
secret is merely the mixing of a stiff drink of absinthe
with lemonade or limeade. The learned man who added
this death-dealing potion to the pleasures of the thirsty
was Stevenson's friend, and attended him in his last
illness. I do not know whether Dr. Funk ever mixed
his favorite drink for R.L.S., but Ms own fame has
spread, not as a healer, but as a dram-decocter, from
Samoa to Tahiti. "Dr. Funk!" one hears in every club
and bar. Its particular merits are claimed by experts
to be a stiffening of the spine when one is all in; an
imparting of courage to live to men worn out by doing
nothing.

The governor in gala attire was again the urban host,
assisted by Andre Bauda, now his close friend and con-
fidant. Bauda himself had been in the island only a
few months, and knew no more Marquesan speech than
the governor. Both these officials were truly hospitable,
embarrassingly so, considering my inability to keep up
with them in their toasts.

Soon the demijohn of rum had been emptied into the
glasses passing from hand to hand in the garden;
Haabunai and Song of the Nightingale again evoked
the thrumming beat of the great drums, and the dance
began. This was a tragedy of the sea, a pantomine of
danger and conflict and celebration. For centuries
past the ancestors of these dancers had played it on the
Forbidden Height. Even the language in which they
chanted was archaic to this generation, its words and
their meanings forgotten.

The women sat upon the grass in a row, and first,
in dumb show, they lifted and carried from its house

172 WHITE SHADOWS

to the beach a long canoe. The straining muscles of
their arms, the sway of their bodies, imitated the rais-
ing of the great boat, and the walking with its weight,
the launching, the waiting for the breakers and the
undertow that would enable them to pass the surf line,
and then the paddling in rough water.

Meantime at a distance the men chanted in chorus,
jgiving rhythmic time to the motions of the dancers and
telling in the long-disused words the story of the drama.
And the drums beat till their rolling thunder resounded
far up the valley.

After the canoe was moving swiftly through the water
the women rested. It seemed to me that the low con-
tinued chant of the men expressed a longing for free-
dom, for a return to nature, and a melancholy comment
on the days of power and liberty gone forever. Though
no person present understood the ancient language of
the song, there was no need of words to interpret the
exact meaning of the dance. Though no word had been
uttered, the motions of the women would have clearly
told the tale.

When they began again, the sea grew more agitated.
Now tlie wail of the men reproduced the sound of waves
beating on the canoe, and the whistling of the wind.
The canoe was tossed high by the pounding sea; it slid
dizzily down into the troughs of waves and rocked as
the oarsmen fought to hold it steady. The squall had
grown into a gale, roaring upon them while they tried
to hold it steady. The canoe began to fill with water,
it sank deeper and deeper, and in another moment the
boatsmen were flung into the ocean. There they strug-
gled with the great seas; they swam; they regained the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 173

canoe; they righted it, climbed into it. The storm sub-
sided, the seas went down.

Again the women rested, their arms and bodies shin-
ing with perspiration. All this time they had remained
immobile from the waist downward; their naked legs
folded under them like those of statues. The chant of
the men was quieter now, expressing a memory of the
old gaiety now crushed by the inhibitions of the whites,
by ridicule of island legends, and by the stern denun-
ciations of priests and preachers. Yet it was full of
suggestion of days gone by and the people who had once
sailed the seas among these islands.

Again the dancers raised their arms, and the canoe
sailed over sunny waters. At length it touched at an
isle, it was carried through the breakers to a resting
place on the sand. Its oarsmen rejoiced, they danced
a dance of thanksgiving to their gods, and wreathed
the ti leaves in their hair.

At this moment Haabunai, master of ceremonies,
gave a cry of dismay and ceased to beat his drum.
With an anguished glance at the assembled spectators,
he dashed around the corner of the house, to reappear
in an instant with his hands full of green leaves.

"Mon dieu! 9 ' cried the governor. "Mon salade!
Mon salade!"

.Haabunai, busied with his duties, had forgotten to
provide the real and sacred ti. In despair at the last
moment he had raided and utterly destroyed the gover-
nor's prized lettuce bed, the sole provision for salad-
making in Atuona. He hastily divided the precious
leaves among the dancers, and with wilting lettuce en-
wreathed in their tresses the oarsmen launched the canoe

174 WHITE SHADOWS

once more in the waves and returned to their own isle,
praising the gods.

All relaxed now, to receive the praises of the governor
and the brimming glasses once more offered by the dili-
gent Haabunai and Song, aided by the gendarme.

A gruesome cannibal chant followed, accompanied by
the booming of the drums, and then, warmed by the
liquor that fired their brains, the dancers began the
haka, the sexual dance. Inflamed by the rum, they
flung themselves into it with such abandon as I have
never seen, and I saw a kamacdna in Hawaii and have
seen Caroline, Miri, and Mamoe, most skilled dancers
of the Hawaiian Islands. With the continued passing
of the cup, the Jmrahura soon became general. The
men and women who had begun dancing in rows, in an
organized way, now broke ranks and danced freely all
over the lawn. Men sought out the women they liked,
and women the men, challenging each other in frenzied
and startling exposition of the ancient ways.

The ceaseless booming of the drums added incitement
to the frenzy; the grounds of the governor's palace were
a chaos of twisting brown bodies and agitated pareus>
while from all sides rose cries, shouts, hysterical laugh-
ter, and the sound of clapping hands and thumping
feet. Here and there dancers fell exhausted, until by
elimination the dance resolved itself into a duet, all
yielding the turf to Many Daughters, the little, lovely
leper, and Kekela Avaua, chief of Paumau. These left
the lawn and advanced to the veranda, where so con-
tagious had become the enthusiasm that the governor
was doing the hurahura opposite Bauda, and Ah YD
danced with Apporo, while Song, the prisoner, and

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 175

Flag, tlie gendarme, madly emulated the star per-
formers.

Kekela, who led the rout, was a figure at which to
marvel. A very big man, perhaps six feet four inches
in height, and all muscle, his contortions and the frenzied
movements of his muscles exceeded all anatomical laws.
Many Daughters, her big eyes shining, her red lips
parted, followed and matched his every motion. Her
entire trunk seemed to revolve on the pivot of her waist,
her hips twisting in almost a spiral, and her arms akimbo
accentuating and balancing her lascivious mobility.

The governor and the commissionaire, Ah Yu and
Apporo, Monsieur Bapp with Song of the Nightingale
and Flag, made the palace tremble while the thrum of
the great drums maddened their blood.

Exhausted at last, they lay panting on the boards.
Song was telling me that the liquor of the governor's
giving surpassed all his illicit make, and that when his
sentence expired he would remain at the palace as? cook.
Ah Yu, in broken English, sang a ditty he had heard
forty years earlier in California, "Shoo-fle-fly-doan-
bodder-me." Apporo, overcome by the rum and the
dance, was lying among the rose-bushes. Many others
were flung on the sward, and more rose again to the
dance, singing and shouting and demanding more rum.
The girls came forward to be kissed, as was the custom,
and Madame Bapp drove them away with sharp words.

Soon the hullabaloo became too great for the dignity
of the governor. He gave orders to clear the grounds,
and Baiida issued commands from the veranda while
Song and Flag lugged away the drums and drove the
excited mob out of the garden and across the bridge.

176 WHITE SHADOWS

All in all, this Sunday was typical of Atuona under
the new regime.

After a quiet bath in the pool below my cabin I got
my own dinner, unassisted by Exploding Eggs, and
went early to bed to forestall visitors. The crash of
a falling cocoanut awakened me at midnight, and I saw
on my paepae Apporo, Flower, Water, and Chief
Kekela Avaua, asleep. The chief had hung his trousers
over the railing, and was in his pareu, his pictured legs
showing, while the others lay naked on my mats* There
was no need to disturb them, for it is the good and hon-
ored custom of these hospitable islands to sleep wherever
slumber overtakes one.

The night was fine, the stars looked down through
the breadfruit-trees, and Temetiu, the giant mountain,
was dark and handsome in the blue and gold sky. Two
sheep were huddled together by my trail window, the
horses were lying down in the brush, and a nightingale
lilted a gay love song in the cocoanut-palms above the
House of the Golden Bed.

Next morning all Atuona had a tight handkerchief
bound over its forehead. I met twenty men and women
with this sign of repentance upon their brows. Water-
cress, the chief of Atuona, who guards the governor's
ho\ise, was by the roadside.

You have drunk too much," I remarked, as I spied
the rag about his head.

"Not too much, but a great deal," he rejoined.

f 'Fain-fan" I said further, which means that it is a
bad thing.

"Hana paopaof* he said sadly. "It is disagreeable
to work. One likes to forget many things."

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 177

There was bitterness and sorrow in his tone. His
father was a warrior, under the protection of Toatahu,
the god of the chiefs, and led many a victorious foray
when Watercress was a child. The son remembers the
old days and feels deeply the degradation and ruin
brought by the whites upon his people. A distin-
guished-looking man, dignified and haughty, he was one
of half a dozen who were working out taxes by repairing
the roads, and he was one of the few who worked stead-
ily, saying little and seldom smiling.

CHAPTER XVII

A walk to the Forbidden Place; Hot Tears, the hunchback; the story of
Behold the Servant of the Priest, told by Malicious Gossip in the cave
of Enamoa.

IT was a drowsy afternoon, and coming up the
jungle trail to my cabin I saw Le Brunnec, the
trader, accompanied by Mouth of God and Tahi-
apii, half-sister to Malicious Gossip.

Le Brunnec, a Breton, intelligent, honest, and light-
hearted, owned the store below the governor's palace on
the road to Atuona beach. He lived above it, alone
save for a boy who cooked for him, and all the Mar-
quesans were his friends. He had come this afternoon
to take me for a walk up Atuona valley, and on the
main road below my house Le Moine, Jimmy Kekela,
Hot Tears, the hunchback, and Malicious Gossip
awaited us.

We waded the river and found a trail that wandered
along it, crossed it now and then, and hung in places on
the high banks above it. The trail had been washed
by freshets often and was rough and stony, overhung
with trees and vines. Along it, a hundred feet or so
from the river, were houses sparsely scattered in the
almost continuous forest of cocoanut and breadfruit.
Oranges and bananas, mangoes and limes, surrounded
the cabins, most of which were built of rough planks
and roofed with iron. Here and there I saw a native
house of straw matting thatched with palm leaves, a

178

Ifil

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

sign of a poverty that could not reach the hideoiE,..
admired, standard of the whites*

Many people sitting on their paepaes called to us, and
one woman pointed to me and said that she wished to
take my name and give me her own. This is their
custom with one to whom they are attracted, but I af-
fected not to understand. I did not want, so early in
my residence in Atuona, to lose a name that had served
me well for many years, and besides, if I took another
I would have to abide by whatever it might be and be
known by it. It would be pleasant to be called "Blue
Sky" or "Killer of Sharks," but how about "Drowned
in the Sea" or "Noise Inside"?

"Keep your name to yourself, mon ami? said Le
Moine. "They expect much from you if you give them
yours. They will give you heaps of useless presents,
but you alone have the right to buy rum."

Following a curve in the stream, we came upon
Teata (Miss Theater), the acknowledged beauty of
Atuona, waist-deep in a pool, washing her gowns* She
was a vision of loveliness, large-eyed, tawny, her hair
a dark cascade about her fair face and bare shoulders,
the crystal water lapping her slender thighs and curl-
ing into ripples about her, the heavy jungle growth on
the banks making an emerald background to her beauty*

"They are like the ancient Greeks," said Le Moine,
"with the grace of accustomed nudity and the poise of
the barefooted. You must not judge them by the pres-
ent standards of Europe, but by the statues of Greece
or Egypt. M Vmselle Theater there in the brook would
have been renowned in the Golden Age of Pericles. I
must paint her before she is older. They are good

WHITE SHADOWS

..s, for they have no nerves and will sit all day in a
^ use, though they dislike standing, and must have their
pipe or cigarette. You have seen Vanquished Often,
in my own valley of Vait-hua, whom I have painted
so much* Ah, there is beauty! One will not find her
like in all the world. Paris knows nothing like her."

Teata waved her hand at us from the brook, and flung
her heavy hair backward over her shoulder as she went
on with her task. Looking back at her before the trail
wound again into the forest, I saw that her features in
repose were hard and semi-savage, the lines still beauti-
ful, but cast in a severe and forbidding mold.

We climbed steadily, jumping from rock to rock
and clinging to the bushes. A mile up the valley wfe
came suddenly upon a plateau, and saw before us the
remains of an ancient Pekia, or High Place, a grim and
grisly monument of the days of evil gods and man-
eating.

This, in the old days, was the paepae tapu, or For-
bidden Height, the abode of dark and terrible spirits.
Upon it once stood the temple and about it in the depths
of night were enacted the rites of mystery, when the
priests and elders fed on the "long pig that speaks/ 5
when the drums beat till dawn and wild dances mad-
dened the blood.

When it was built, no man can say. Centuries have
looked upon these black stones, grim as the ruins of
Karnak, created by a mysterious genius, consecrated to
something now gone out of the world forever. For
ages hidden in the gloom of the forest, it was swept and
polished by hands long since dust ; it was held in rever-
ence and dread. It was tapu, devoted to terrible deities.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 181

and none but the priests or the chiefs might approach
it except on nights of ghastly feasting.

It stood in a grove of shadowy trees, which even at
mid-afternoon cast a gloom upon the ponderous black
rocks of the platform and the high seats where chiefs
and wizards once sat devouring the corpses of their foes.
Above them writhed and twisted the distorted limbs of a
huge banian-tree, and below, among the gnarled roots,
there was a deep, dark pit.

We paused in a clear space of green turf delicately
shaded by mango-trees walled in with ferns and grass
and flowering bushes, and gazed into the gloom. This
was forbidden ground until the French came. No road
led to it then; only a narrow and dusky trail, guarded
by demons of Po and trod by humans only in the
whispering darkness of the jungle night, brought the
warriors with the burdens of living meat to the place
of the gods. But the French, as if to mock the sacred
things of the conquered, made two roads converge in
this very spot, from which one wound its way over the
mountains to Hanamenu and the other followed the
river to an impasse in the hills.

"My forefathers and mothers ate their fill of lonjg
pig' here and danced away the night," said Hot Tears,
the hunchback, as he lighted a cigarette and sat upon
the stone pulpit that once had been a wizard's. His
heavy face, crushed down upon his crooked chest, showed
not the slightest trace of fear; a pale imp danced in
each of his narrowed eyes as he looked up at me.

"That banian-tree, my grandfather said, held the
toua, the cord of cocoanut fiber that held the living
meat suspended above the baking pit. There, you see,

182 WHITE SHADOWS

among the roots that was the oven, above which the
prisoners hung. Here stood the great drums, and the
servants of the priests beat them, till the darkness was
filled with sound and all the valleys heard.

"Auef The hunchback leaped to the edge of the
pit. He raised his thin arms in the air, and I seemed
to see, amidst the contorted limbs of the aged banian,
fifty feet above, the quivering bodies swaying. "The
toua breaks! They fall. Here on the rocks. They
are killed with blows of the u*u, thus! And thus the
meat is cut, and wrapped in the meika aa. Light the
fire! Pile in the wood! It roasts!"

His ghoulish laughter rose in the dark stillness of the
jungle, and the hair stirred on my scalp. To my vision
the high black seats were filled with shadowy figures,
the light of caridlenut torches fell on tattooed faces and
gleaming eyes. When the hunchback moved from the
tree of death, feigning to carry a platter, first to the
great seats of the chiefs, then to the wide platform
below, the flesh crawled on my bones.

"Ail They dance! 'Ail Ail Ai! They danced,
and they loved! All night the drums beat. The
drums! The drums! The drums!" He flung his
twisted body on the green and laughed madly, till the
old banian itself answered him. For a moment he
writhed in a silence even more ghastly than his laughter,
then lay still.

ff Au!" he said, turning over on his back. "My grand-
father believed this Pekia to be the abode of demons."
He paused. "As for me, I believe in none of them,
or in any other gods." And he blew out his breath
contemptuously*

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 183

Le Moine surveyed the scene critically.

"What a picture at night, with torches flickering, and
the seats filled with men in red pareus! Mais, c'est
terrible!"

He got off a hundred feet and squinted through a
roll of paper.

"I wish I could paint it," he said. "It must be a
big canvas, and all dark but the torches and a few faces.
Mon dieut Magnificent!"

Is cannibalism in the Marquesas a thing of the past?
Do those grim warriors who survive the new regime
ever relapse? Who can say? It is not probable, for
the population of the valleys is so small and the move-
ments of the people so limited that absence is quickly
detected. Yet every once in awhile some one is miss-
ing.

ff Haa mate. He has leaped into the sea. He was
paopao. Life was too long."

Or, if the disappearance was in crossing from one
valley to another, it is said that a rock or a fall of earth
had swept the absent one over a cliff. These are rea-
sonable explanations, yet there persist whispers of foul
appetitites craving gratification and of old rites revived
by the moke, the hermits who hide in the mountains.

Two such disappearances had occurred during my
brief stay in Atuona, and I had made little of the whis-
pers. But now, with the hideous laughter of the hunch-
back still ringing in my ears, they slipped darkly
through my mind, and I never felt the sunshine sweeter
or tasted the mountain air with more delight than when
we left that unholy place and were out on the trail again.

Our destination was a waterfall, with a pool in which

184 WHITE SHADOWS

we might bathe, and after leaving the PeJda we fol-
lowed the stream, climbing higher and higher from the
sea. In the Marquesas all the rivers begin in the high
mountains, where from the precipices leap the torrents
in times of rain. As the valleys are mere ravines at
their heads, the waters collect in their depths and roll
to the ocean, rippling gently on sunny days, but after
a downpour raging, rolling huge boulders over and over
and tearing away cliffs.

These streams are the life of the people in the upper
valleys. In the old days of warfare many of these
mountain dwellers never knew the sea; they were pre-
vented from reaching it by the beach clansmen who
claimed the fishing for their own and made it death for
the hill people to venture down to the shore. All the
people of a single valley, six or perhaps a dozen clans,
united to war against other valleys, its people risking
their lives if they trespassed beyond the hills. , Yet
under a wise and powerful chief a whole valley lived
in amity and knew no class or clan divisions.

"We are going to Vaihae, The Waters of the Great
Desire," said Malicious Gossip. "It was a sacred place
once upon a time."

We climbed painfully, Le Moine and I suffering
keenly from the sharp edges of the stones that cut even
through the thick soles of our shoes. The others, who
were barefooted, made nothing of them, walking as
easily and lithely as panthers on the jagged trail.
Soon we heard the crash of the Vaihae^ and sliding down
the mountain-side a hundred feet we came into a depths
of a gorge a yard or two wide, a mere crack in the rocks,
filled with the boom and roar of rushing water. The

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 185

rain-swollen stream, cramped in the narrow passage,
flung itself foaming high on the spray-wet cliffs, and
dashed in a mighty torrent into a deep bowl riven out
of the solid granite twenty feet below.

We put off our clothes and leaped into the pool, en-
joying intensely the coolness of the swirling water after
the sweat of our climb. Malicious Gossip and her sister
would not go in at first, but when I had climbed the face
of a slippery rock twenty feet high to dive, and re-
mained there gazing at the melancholy grandeur of the
scene, Malicious Gossip put off her tunic and swam
through the race, bringing me my camera untouched by
the water. She was a naiad of the old mythologies as
she slipped through the green current, her hair stream-
ing over her shoulders and her body moving effortlessly
as a fish. Once wetted, she remained in the water with
us, and she told me there was a cave behind the water-
fall, hidden by the glassy sheet of water.

"It is called JEnamoa (Behold the Servant of the
Priest) and it has a terrible history," said Malicious
Gossip. "Follow me and we will enter it."

She swam across the pool and turning Ifthely in the
water curved out of sight beneath the surface of the
vortex. Kekela followed her, and I made several at-
tempts, but each time was flung back, bruised and
breathless. It was not until Kekela, finding a long
stick in the cave, thrust it through the white foam, that
by catching its end in the whirling water I was able to
fight through the roaring and smashing deluge.

The cave was obscure and damp, its only light filter-
ing through the moving curtain of green water. Black
and crawling things squirmed at our feet, and darkness

186 WHITE SHADOWS

filled the recesses of the cavern. Malicious Gossip's
body was a blur in the dimness, and her low soft voice
was like an overtone of the deep organ notes of the tor-
rent.

"The tale of the cave of Enamoa is not a legend," she
said, "for it is more. It was a happening known to
our grandfathers. There were two warriors who cov-
eted a woman, and she was tapu to them. She was a
taua vehine, a priestess of the old gods. But they
coveted her, and they were friends, who shared their
wives as they divided their popoi"

"Pandua" said Kekela. "That is 'dear friend cus-
tom/ We had it in Hawaii. Brothers shared their
wives, and sisters their husbands."

"These two were name-brothers, and loved as though
they were brothers by blood," said Malicious Gossip,
"And their hearts were consumed with flame when they
looked on this girl. It was evil of them, for it was
against the will of the gods. She was of their own clan,
and the priests had made her tapu until she had reached
a certain age. Her brother was the servant of the
priests, and she was consecrated to the gods. She was
guarded by most sacred custom. It was forbidden to
touch her or her food.

"Yet these warriors, toa they were, and renowned in
battle, coveted her with a desire that ate their sleep.
And at last when they had drunk the fiery namu enata
till their brains were filled with flames, they lay in wait
for her.

"She came down to this pool to bathe. The pool
itself was tapu save for those consecrated to the gods,
yet this wretched pair crept through the lantana there

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 187

on the bank, and watched her. She stood on the rock
above the pool and put off her pae, her cap of gauze,
her long robe, and her pareu, all of finest tree-cloth,
for in those days before the whites came our people
were properly clothed. All naked then in the sunlight,
she lifted her aims toward the sky and laughed, and
sat down on a rock to bathe her feet.

"Suddenly the lustful warriors sprang upon her, and
stopping her cries with her own pae they swain with her
into this cave* Thought and breath had left her; she
lay as one dead, and before they had attained their will
they heard a sound of one approaching and singing
on the rocks. They had no time to kill her, as they had
intended, that she might not bring death to them. They
left her and fled along the cliffs, barely escaping before
the other man came.

"He had seen from the corner of his eye a sight of
some one fleeing from the cave. He was curious, and
swam to it. It was late in the day, for the .priestess had
come for the evening bath. The sun had hidden him-
self behind Temetiu and the cave was dark. The man
came, then, stepping with care, and his feet found in
the darkness a living body, warm and soft and perfumed
with flowers.

"Then in the darkness, finding her very sweet, he
yielded to the demon. But when he brought her at last
through the falling water to the evening light, he cried
aloud. He was the moa, the servant of the high priest,
and this was his sister whom he loved.

"He screamed thrice, so that all the valley heard him,
and then he flung her into the pool to drown. The
people saw him fleeing to the heights. He never re-

188 WHITE SHADOWS

turned to them. He became a moke, a sorcerer, who
lived alone in the forest, dreaded by alL He was heard
shrieking in the night, and then the storms came. His
eyes were seen through the leaves on jungle trails, and
he who saw died.

"Then the people gave the cave a name, the name of
Enamod; Behold the Servant of the Priest. It was
much larger then than now, as large as a grove. But
one night the people heard the noise of the falling of
great rocks, and in the morning the cave was small as
now. The moke was never seen again. He had
brought down the walls of the cave upon himself, be-
cause it had seen his sin/*

Malicious Gossip, having finished her tale, slipped
again beneath the green curtain of the waterfall. When
I had fought through the blinding, crashing waters and
floated with aching lungs on the surface of the pool,
she was donning her tunic on the rocks above it, and
soon, with our clothes over our wet bodies, we strolled
back to Atuona, Tahiapii smoking Kekela's pipe.

d

M

CHAPTER XVIII

A search for rubber-trees on the plateau of Ahoa; a fight with the wild
white dogs; story of an ancient migration, told by the wild cattle
hunters in the Cave of the Spine of the Chinaman.

I WENT one day with Le Brunnec, the French
trader, in search of rubber trees on the plateau
of Ahao, above Hanamenu, on the other side of
Hiva-oa Island.

Mounted on small, but sturdy, mountain ponies, we
followed the trail across the river and up the steep moun-
tain-side clad with impenetrable jungle, climbing ever
higher and higher above deep gorges and dizzying preci-
pices, until at noon we crossed the loftiest range and
dipped downward to the wide plateau,

A thousand feet above the valley, level as a prairie,
and indescribably wild and deserted, the plain stretched
before us. At some distance to our right a long and
narrow mound rose five hundred feet from the plateau,
a hill that did not mar the vast level expanse, but seemed
instead a great earthwork piled upon it by man. Its
green terrace was a wild garden of flowers and fruit
growing in luxuriant confusion, watered by a stream
that leaped sparkling among tall ferns.

There 'was no breadfruit, for it will live only where
man is there to tend it, and in all the extent of the table-
land there was no human being or sign of habitation.
Wild cattle and boars moved in droves among the scat-
tered trees, or stood in the shallow stream watching us

189

190 WHITE SHADOWS

with curiosity as we passed. Thousands of guinea-pigs
scampered before our horses' feet, and the free descend-
ants of house-trained cats from the cities of Europe anc
America perched upon lofty branches to gaze down at
our cavalcade.

I have seen the Garden of Allah, and the Garden of
Eden, if I can believe the Arab sheik whose camel I
bought for the journey, I have been in Nikko at its
best, and known Johore and Kandy en fSte, but for the
hours in which I looked upon it this plateau of Ahao was
the most exquisite spot upon the earth. The wilderness
of its tropic beauty, the green of its leafage, the rich
profusion and splendor of its flowers, the pale colors
that shimmered along its far horizon, and the desolate
grandeur of Temetiu's distant summit wrapped in thun-
derous clouds, gave it an aspect primitive, mysterious,
and sublime.

Upon the trees hundreds of orchids hung like jewels,
and vines were swung in garlands. Flowers of every
hue spread a brilliant carpet beneath the horses' hoofs;
the hart's-tongue, the manamana-o-Tiina, the papa-mdko
and the parasol-plant, with mosses of every description
and myriads of ferns, covered the sward. Some were
the giant tree-ferns, tall as trees, others uncurled snaky
stems from masses of rusty-colored matting, and every-
where was spread the delicate lace of the uu-fenua, a
maiden-hair beside which the florist's offering is clumsy
and insignificant.

We made our own way through the tall grass and
.tangles of flowering shrubs, for there were no trails save
those made by the great herds of wild cattle that wan-
dered across the plain. Three thousand head at least I

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 191

saw grazing on the luxuriant herbage, or pausing with
lifted heads before they fled at our approach.

"They are descendants of a few left by shipmasters
decades ago/ 9 said Le Brunnec. "Twenty years ago
they roamed in immense herds all over the islands. I
have chased them out of the trail to Hanamenu with a
stick. Like the goats left by the American captain,
Porter, on Nuka-hiva, they thrived and multiplied, but
like the goats they are being massacred*

"Both cattle and goats were past reckoning when,
with peace fully established and the population dwin-
dling, the French permitted the Marquesans to buy guns.
The natives hunt in gangs. Fifteen or twenty men,
each with rifle or shot-gun, go on horseback to the graz-
ing grounds. The beasts at the sound of the explosions
rush to the highest point of the hills. Knowing their
habits, the natives post themselves along the ridges and
kill all they can. They eat or take away three or four,
but they kill thirty or forty. They die in the brush, and
their bones strew the ground."

I told him of the buffalo, antelope, and deer that for-
merly filled our woods and covered our prairies; of
Alexander Wilson, who in Kentucky in 1811 estimated
one flight of wild carrier pigeons as two thousand mil-
lions, and of there being not one of those birds now left
in the world so far as is known.

Le Brunnec sighed, for he was a true sportsman, and
would not kill even a pig if &e could not consume most
of its carcass. Often he half -lifted the shot-gun that
lay across the pommel, but let it drop again, saying,
"We will have a wild bird for supper."

We pitched our tent as the moon hung her lantern

192 WHITE SHADOWS

ever the brow of the hill Never was tent raised in a
spot lonelier or lovelier. We chose for our camp the
shelter of a moto tree, one of the most lordly of all the
growths of these islands. Not ten of them were left in
all the Marquesas, said Le Brunnec as I admired its
towering column and magnificent spread of foliage.
"The whites who used the axe in these isles would have
made firewood of the ark of the covenant. 35

We made a fire before our tent and cooked a wild
chicken he had shot, which, with pilot-biscuit and Bor-
deaux wine, made an excellent dinner. Darkness closed
around us while we ate, the wide plateau stretched about
us, mysterious in the light of the moon, and the night
was cool and pleasant. We lay in lazy comfort, en-
joying the fresh light air of that altitude and smoking
"John's" mixture from Los Angeles, till sleepiness
spilled the tobacco. Our numbed senses scarcely let us
drag our mats into the tent before unconsciousness
claimed us*

I was wakened by the blood-chilling howls' of a wolf-
pack in full cry, and a shout from Le Brunnec, "The
dogs!"

He stood by the open flap of the tent, a black sil-
houette of man and gun. When I had clutched my own
rifle and reached his side I saw in the moonlight a score
of huge white beasts, some tangled in a snarling heap
over the remains of our supper, others crouching on their
haunches in a ring, facing us. One of them sprang as
Le Brunnec fired, and its hot breath fanned my face be-
fore my own finger pressed the trigger.

The two wounded brutes struggled on the ground un-
'til a second shot finished them, and the rest made off to a

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 193

little distance, where Le Brunnec kept them with an
occasional shot while I brought up the terrified ponies,
snorting and plunging. More wood thrown on the coals
spread a circle of firelight ahout us, and Le Brunnec and
I took turns in standing guard until morning, while the
white dogs sat like sheeted ghosts around us and made
the night hideous with howls. One or the other of us
must have dozed, for during the night the beasts dragged
away the two dead and picked their bones.

These, Le Brunnec said, were the sons and daughters
of dogs once friendly to humanity, and like the wild cats
we had seen, they bore mute testimony to the numbers
of people who once lived on this plateau.

When dawn came the mountain rats were scurrying
about the meadows, but the dogs had gone afar, leaving
only the two heaps of bones and the wreckage of all out-
side the tent to tell of their foray. The sun flooded
the mesa, disclosing myriad fern-fronds and mosses and
colored petals waving in the light breeze as Le Brunnec
and I went down to the stream to bathe.

Alas! I lolled there on the bank, thinking to gaze my
fill at all this loveliness, and sat upon the puke, a feath-
ery plant exquisite to the eye, but a veritable bunch of
gadflies for pricking meanness. It is a sensitive shrub,
retreating at man's approach, its petioles folding from
sight, but with all its modesty it left me a stinging re-
minder that I had failed to respect its privacy.

At noon we came to the hill that rises from the
plateau, and found at its base a cistern, the sole token
we had seen of the domain of man, except the dogs and
cats that had returned to the primitive. It was a basin
cut in the solid rock, and doubtless had been the water

194 WHITE SHADOWS

supply of the tribes that dwelt here hemmed in by
imes. There was about it the vague semblance of an
altar, and in the brush near i't we saw the black remains
of a mighty paepae like that giant Marai of Papara in
Tahiti, which itself seemed kin to the great pyramid
temple of Borobodo in Java. Melancholy memorials
these of man, who is so like the gods, but who passes like
a leaf in the wind.

Lolling in the stream that overflowed the edge of the
ancient cistern, we discussed our plans. Le Brunnec
was convinced that the eva, which we had found in con-
siderable numbers, was a rubber-tree. He said that
rubber was obtained from many trees, vines, roots, and
plants, and that the sap of the eva, when dried and
treated, had all the necessary bouncing qualities. We
were to estimate the number of eva trees on the plateau
and size up the value of the land for a plantation. Thus
we might turn into gold that poison tree whose reddish-
purple, alluring fruit has given so many Marquesans
escape from life's bitterness, whose jui^r wounded 01
mutilated warriors drank to avoid pain or contempt.

Idling thus in the limpid water, we heard a voice and
started up surprised. A group of natives looked down
upon us from the hill above, and their leader was asking
who were the strange Tiaoe who had come to their valley,

Le Brunnec shouted his name Proneka, in the native
tongue and after council they shouted down an invita-
tion to breakfast. We had no guns, or, indeed, any
other clothing than a towel, our horses being tethered at
some distance, but we climbed the hill. Half way up
the steep ascent we were confronted by a wild sow with

IN THE SOUTH

eight piglets. Le Brunnec said that one of them would
be appreciated by our hosts, but the mother, surmising
his intention, put her litter behind her and stood at bay.
To attempt the rape of the pork, naked, afoot, and un-
armed, would have meant grievous wounds from those
gnashing tusks, so we abandoned the gift and ap-
proached our hosts empty-handed.

We found them waiting for us in the Grotto of the
Spine of the Chinaman, a shallow cave in the side of the
hill. There were seven of them, naked as ourselves,
thick-lipped, their eyes ringed with the blue a7na~ink and
their bodies scrolled with it. They had killed a bull the
day before and had cooked the meat in bamboo tubes,
steaming it in the earth until it was tender and tasty.
We gorged upon it, and then rested in the cool cave
while we smoked* They were curious to know why we
were there, and asked if we were after beef, I dis-
claimed this intention, and said that I was wondering ii
Ahao had not held many people once.

"Ai! E me ft tiatoJm hoi! Do you not know of the
Piina of Fiti-nui? Of the people that once were here?
Aoe ? Then I will teU you/'

While the pipe went from mouth to mouth, Eitu, the
leader of the hunters, related the following:

"The Piina of Fiti-nui had always lived here on the
plateau of Ahao. The wise men chrorJcled a hundred
and twenty generations since the -clan began. That
would be before Iholcmoni built the temple in ludea.
that the priests of the new white gods tell us of. The
High Place of the Piina of Fiti-nui was old before
Iholomoni was born.

196 WHITE SHADOWS

"But, old as was the clan, there came a time when it
grew small in number. For longer than old remem-
bered they had been at war with the Piina of Hana-
uaua, who lived in the next valley below this plateau.
These two peoples were kinsman, but the hate between
them was bitter. The enemy gave the Piina of Fiti-nui
no rest. Their popoi pits were opened and emptied,
their women were stolen, and their men seized and eaten.
Month after month and year after year the clan lost its
strength.

"They had almost ceased to tattoo their bodies, for
they asked what it served them when they were so soon
to bake in the ovens of the Hana-uaua people. They
could not defeat the Hana-uaua, for -they were small in
number and the Hana-uaua were great. The best fight-
ers were dead. The gods only could save the last of the
tribe from the vdnahae, the vampire who seizes the
dead.

"The taua went into the High Place and besought the
gods, but they were deaf. They made no answer.
Then in despair the chief, Atituahuei, set a time when,
if the gods gave no counsel, he would lead every man of
the tribe against the foe, and die while the war-clubs
sang.

"Atituahuei went with the taua to the giant rock,
Meae-Topaiho, the sacred stone shaped like a spear that
stood between the lands of the warring peoples, and
there he said this vow to the gods. And the people
waited.

"They waited for the space of the waxing and waning
of the moon, and the gods said nothing. Then the war-
riors made ready their uu of polished ironwood, and

I1ST THE SOUTH SEAS 197

filled their baskets with stones, and made ready the
spears. On the darkest night of the moon the Piina of
Fiti-nui was to go forth to fight and be killed by the
Hana-uaua.

"But before the moon had gone, the tana came down
from the High Place, and said that the gods had spoken.
They commanded the people to depart from Ahao, and
to sail beyond the Isle of Barking Dogs until they came
to a new land. The gods would protect them from the
waves. The gods had shown the taua a hidden valley,
which ran to the beach, in which to build the canoes.

"For many months the Piina of Fiti-nui labored in
secret in the hidden valley. They built five canoes,
giant, double canoes, with high platforms and houses on
them, the kind that are built no more. In these canons
they placed the women and children and the aged, and
when all was ready, the men raided the village of the
Piina of Hana-uaua, and in the darkness brought all
their food to the canoes.

"At daybreak the Fiti-nui embarked in four of the
canoes, but one they must leave behind for the daughter
of the chief, who expected to be delivered of a child at
any hour, and for the women of her family, who would
not leave her. The hidden valley was filled with the
sound of lamentation at the parting, but the gods had
spoken, and they must go.

"When the four canoes were in the sea beyond the
village of Hana-uaua, all their people beat their war-
drums and blew the trumpets of shell. The people of
Hana-uaua heard the noise, and said that strangers had
come, but whether for a fight or a feast they did not
know. They rushed to the shore, and there they saw on

LU3 WHITE SHADOWS

the fcea the people of the Fiti-nui, who called to them and
sajd that they were going far away.

"Then the Hana-uaua tribe wept. For they remem-
Lered that they were brothers, and though they had
fought long, the warriors of Fiti-nui had been good
fi^htzTS and brave. Also many Fiti-nui women had
been taken by the men of Hana-uaua, and captured
youths had been adopted, and the tribes were kin by
many ties*

"The two tribes talked together across the waves, and
the tribe of Hana-uaua begged their brothers not to go.
They said that they would fight no more, that the pris-
oners who had not been eaten should be returned to their
own valley, that the two clans would liv r e forever in
friendship.

"'Then the people of Fiti-nui wept again, but they said
that the gods had ordered them to sail away, and they
must go.

" 'But/ said the chief of the Fiti-nui, 'you will know
that we have reached a new land safely when the Meae-
Topaiho falls, when the great spear is broken by the
gods, you will know that your brothers are in a new
home/

"Then they departed, the four canoes, but the daugh-
ter of the chief did not go, for her child was long in being
born. She lived with the people of Hana-uaua in peace
and comfort. And when the season of the bread-
fruit had come and gone, one night when the rain and
the wind made the earth tremble and slip, the people of
Hana-uaua heard a roaring and a crashing.

" 'The gods are angry/ they said. But the daughter
of the chief said, 'My people have found their home/

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 199

And in the morning they found that the Meae-Topaiho
had fallen, the blade of the spear was broken, and the
prophecy fulfilled.

"That was four generations ago, and ever since that
time the people of Hana-uaua have looked for some sign
from their brothers who went away. Their names were
kept in the memories of the tribe. Ten years ago many
men were brought here to work on the plantations, from
Puka-Puka and Na-Puka in the Paumotas, and they
talked with the people.

ff Aue! They were the children's children of the Piina
of Fiti-nui. In those low islands to which their fathers
and mothers went, they kept the words and the names of
old. They had kept the memory of the journey. And
one old man was brought by his son, and he remembered
all that his father had told him, and his father was the
son of the chief, Atituahuei.

"These people did not look like our men. The many
years had made them different. But they knew of the
spear rock, and of the prophecy, and they were in truth
the lost brothers of the Hana-uaua people.

"But the Hana-uaua people, too, were dying now.
None was left of the blood of the chief's daughter. No
man was left alive on the plateau of Ahao.

"Their popoi pits are the wallows of the wild boar; on
their paepaes sit the wild white dogs. The horned cattle
wander where they walked. Hee i te fenua ke! They
are gone, and the stranger shall have their graves."

CHAPTER XIX

A feast to the men of Motopu; the making of kava, and its drinking; th e
story of the Girl Who Lost Her Strength.

THE Vagabond, Kivi, who lived near the Higli
Place, came down to my paepae one evening to
bid me come to a feast given in Atuona Valley
to the men of Motopu, who had been marvelously fav-
ored by the god of the sea.

Months of storms, said Kivi, had felled many a stately
palm of Taka-Uka and washed thousands of ripe cocoa-
nuts into the bay, whence the current that runs swift
across the channel had swept the fruitage of the winds
straight to the inlet of Motopu, on the island of Tahuata.
The men of that village, with little effort to themselves,
had reaped richly.

Now they were come, bringing back the copra dried
and sacked. Seven hundred francs they had received
for a ton of it from Kriech, the German merchant of
Taka-Uka, from whose own groves it had been stolen by
the storms.

On the morrow, their canoes laden with his goods,
they would sail homeward. One day they had tarried
to raft redwood planks of California from the schooner
in the bay to the site of KivPs new house. So that night
in gratitude he would make merry for them. There
would be much to eat, and there would be kav a in plenty.
He prayed that I would join them in this feast, which
would bring back the good days of the
which were now almost forgotten.

200

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 201

I rose gladly from the palm-shaded mat on which I
had lain vainly hoping for a breath of coolness in the
close heat of the day, and girded the red pareu more
neatly about my loins. Often I had heard of the kava-
drinking days before the missionaries had insisted on
outlawing that drink beloved of the natives. The
traders had added their power to the virtuous protests
of the priests, for kava cost the islanders nothing, while
rum, absinthe, and opium could be sold them for profit.
So &<2a-drinking had been suppressed, and after dec-
ades of knowing more powerful stimulants and nar-
cotics, the natives had lost their taste for the gentler bev-
erage of their forefathers.

The French law prohibited selling, exchanging, or
giving to any Marquesan any alcoholic beverage. But
the law was a dead letter, for only with rum and wine
could work be urged upon the Marquesans, and I failed
to reprove them even in my mind for their love of drink.
One who has not seen a dying race cannot conceive of
the prostration of spirit in which these people are perish-
ing. That they are courteous and hospitable and that
to the white who has ruined them shows faintly their
former joy in life and their abounding generosity.
Now that no hope is left them and their only future is
death, one cannot blame them for seizing a few mo-
ment's f orgetfulness.

Some years earlier, in the first bitterness of hopeless
subjugation, whole populations were given over to
drunkenness. In many valleys the chiefs lead in the
making of the illicit namu enata^ or cocoanut-brandy.
In the Philippines, where millions of gallons of cocoa-
nut-brandy are made, it is called tuba, but usually its

202 WHITE SHADOWS

IIP me is arrack throughout tropical Asia. Fresh from
tiie flower spathes of the cocoanut-tree, namu tastes like
a very light, creamy beer or mead. It is delicious and
refreshing, and only slightly intoxicating. Allowed to
ferment and become sour, it is all gall. Its drinking
then is divided into two episodes swallowing and intox-
ication. There is no interval- "Forty-rod" whiskey is
mild compared to it.

I had seen the preparation of namu, which is very
simple. The native mounts the tree and makes incis-
ions in the flowers, of which each palm bears from three
to six* He attaches a calabash under them and lets the
juice drip all day and night. The process is slow, as
the juice falls drop by drop. This operation m^y be re-
peated indefinitely with no injury to the tree. In coun-
tries where the liquor is gathered to sell in large quanti-
ties, the natives tie bamboo poles from tree to tree, so
that an agile man will run through the forest tending the
calabashes, emptying them into larger receptacles, and
lowering these to the ground, all without descending
from his lofty height.

The namu when stale causes the Marquesans to revert
to wickedest savagery, and has incited many murders.
-Under the eye of the gendarme its making ceases, but a
hundred valleys have no white policemen, and the Ijtalf
score of people remaining amid their hundreds of ruined
paepacs give themselves over to intoxication. I have
seen a valley immersed in it, men and women madly
dancing the ancient nude dances in indescribable orgies
of abandonment and bestiality.

Namu enata means literally "man booze. 5 ' The Per-
sian-Arabic word, nam, or narm-Jeeffi, means "the liquid

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 203

from the p&lm flower." From this one might think that
Asia had taught the Marquesas the art of making namu
during their prehistoric pilgrimage to the islands, but
the discoverers and early white residents in Polynesia
saw no drunkenness save that of the fea&a-cbirJiing. It
was the European, or the Asiatic brought by the white,
who introduced comparatively recently the more vicious
cocoanut-brandy, as well as rum and opium, and it is
these drinks that have been a potent factor in killing the
natives*

It has ever been thus with men of other races subju-
gated by the whites. Benjamin Franklin in his auto-
biography tells that when he was a commissioner to the
Indians at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, he and his fellow-
commissiosers agreed that they would allow the Indians
no rum until the treaty they earnestly sought was con-
cluded, and that then they should have plenty.

He pictures an all-night debauch of the red men after
they had signed the treaty, and concludes: "And, in-
deed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these
savages in order to make room for cultivators of the
ea^th, it seems not improbable that rum may be the ap-
poiitted means. It has annihilated all the tribes who
formerly inhabited the sea-coast."

It was not for me to speculate upon the designs of
Providence with respect to the Marquesans. Kava had
been the drink ordained by the old gods before the white
men came- Its making was now almost a lost art; I
knew no white man who had ever drunk from the kava-
bowl. So it was with some eagerness that I followed
Kivi down the trail.

Broken Plate, a sturdy savage in English cloth cap

204 WHITE SHADOWS

and whale's-teeth earrings, stood waiting for us in the
road below the House of the Golden Bed, and together
the three of us went in search of the kava bush. While
we followed the narrow trail up the mountain-side, peer-
ing through masses of tangled vines and shrubs for the
large, heart-shaped leaves and jointed stalks we sought,
Kivi spoke with passion of the degenerate days in which
he lived.

Let others secretly make incisions in the flower of the
cocoanut and hang calabashes to catch the juice, said he.
Or let them crook the hinges of the knee that rum might
follow fawning on the whites. Not he! The dru:\ of
his fathers, the drink of his youth, was good enough for
him! Agilely he caught aside a leafy branch overhang-
ing the trail, and in the flecks of sunshine and shade his
naked, strong brown limbs were like the smooth stems of
an aged manzanita tree.

He had not the scaly skin or the bloodshot eyes of the
kava debauchee, whose excesses paint upon their victim
their own vivid signs. I remembered a figure caught by
the rays of my flashlight one night on a dark trail a
withered creature whose whole face and body had turned
a dull green, and at the memory of that grisly phantom
I shuddered. But Broken Plate, on the trail ahead,
called back to us that he had found a goodly bush, and
without more words we clambered to it.

The kava, a variety of the pepper-plant, grows to
more than six feet in height, and the specimen we had
found thrust above our heads its many jointed branches
rustling with large, flat leaves. The decoction, Kivi
explained, comes from the root, and we set to work ta
dig it.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 205

It was huge, like a gigantic yam, and after we had
torn it from the stubborn soil it taxed the strength and
agility of two of us to carry it to the paepae of Broken
Plate, where the feast was to be. A dozen older women,
skilled in grating the breadfruit for popoi making,
awaited us there, squatting in a ring on the low plat-
form. The root, well washed in the river, was laid on
the stones, and the women attacked it with cowry-shells,
scraping it into particles like slaw. It was of the hard-
ness of ginger, and filled a large tanoa> or wooden
trough of ironwood.

T&e scraping had hardly well begun, while Broken
Plate 'and! rested from our labors, smoking pandanus-
leaf cigarettes in the shade, when up the road came half
a dozen, of the most beautiful young girls of the village,
clothed in all their finery.

Teata, with all the arrogance of the acclaimed beauty,
walked, first, wearing a tight-fitting gown with inser-
tions of fishnet, evidently copied from some stray fash-
ion-book. She wore it as her only garment, and through
the wide meshes of the novel lace appeared her skin, of
the tint of the fresh-cooked breadfruit. She passed us
with a coquettish toss of her shapely head and took her
place among her envious companions*
They sat on mats around the iron-wood trough and
chewed the grated root, which, after thorough mastica-
tion, they spat out into banana-leaf cups. This chew-
ing of the kava-Tooi is the very T)eing of kava as a bever-
age, for it is a ferment in the saliva that separates alka-
loid and sugar and liberates the narcotic principle.
Only the healthiest and loveliest of the girls are chosen
to munch the root, that delectable and honored privilege

206 TTHITE SHADOWS

being refused to those whose teeth are not perfect and
upon whose cheeks the roses do not bloom*

Xevertheless, as I smoked at ease in my pareu upon
the paepae of my simple hosts I felt some misgivings
rise in nie. Yet why cavil at the vehicle by which one
arrives at Xirvana? Had I not tasted the chicha beer
of the Andes, and found it good? And vague analogies
and surmises floated before me in the curls of smoke
that rose in the clear evening light.

T *VTiat hidden clue to the remotest beginnings of the
human race lies in the fact that two peoples, so far apart
as the Marquesans and the South American Indians,
use the same method of making their native beverage?
In the Andes corn takes the place of the kava root, and
young girls, descendants of the ancient Incas, chew the
grains, sitting in a circle and with a certain ceremonious-
ness, as among these Marquesans. The Marquesas Is-
lands are on the same parallel of latitude as Peru.
Were these two peoples once one race, living on that
3o:;g-sur:L:f:n continent in which Darwin believed?

Dusk fell slowly while I pondered on the mysteries in
which our life is rooted, and on the unknown beginnings
and forgotten significances of all human customs. The
iron-wood trough was filled with the masticated root*
and in groups and in couples the girls slipped away to
bathe in the river. There they were met by arriving
guests, and the sound of laughter and splashing came
up to us as darkness closed upon the paepae and the
torches were lit.

Lights were coming out like stars up the dark valley
as each household made its vesper fire to roast breadfruit
or broil fish, and lanterns were hung upon the bamboo

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 207

palisades that marked the limits of property or confined
favorite pigs* A cool breeze rose and rustled the fronds
of cocoanut and bamboo, bringing from forest depths a
clean, earthy odor.

The last bather came from the brook, refreshed by the
cooling waters and adorned with flowers. All were in a
merry mood for food and fun. Half a dozen flaring
torches illuminated their happy, tattooed faces and
dusky bodies, and caught color from the vivid blossoms
in their hair. The ring of light made blacker the rus-
tling cocoanut grove, the lofty trees of which closed in
upon us on every side.

Under the gaze of many sparkling eyes Kivi pierced
green cocoanuts brought him fresh from the climbing,
and poured the cool wine of them over the masticated
kava. He mixed it thoroughly and then with his bands
formed balls of the oozy mass, from which he squeezed
the juice into another tanoa glazed a deep, rich blue by
its frequent saturation in kava. When this trough was
quite full of a muddy liquid, he deftly clarified it by
sweeping through it a net of cocoanut fiber. All the
while he chanted in a deep resonant voice the ancient
song of the ceremony.

fe U haanoho ia te Jew, a tapapa ia te kai!" he called
with solemnity when the last rite was performed.
"Come to supper; all is ready."

"Menike" he said to me, "You know that to drink
kava you must be of empty stomach. After eating,
kava will make you sick. If you do not eat as soon as
you have drunk it, you will not enjoy it. Take it now,
and then eat, quickly.' 5

He dipped a shell in the trough, tossed a few drops

208 WHITE SHADOWS

over Ms shoulder to propitiate the god of the fcaaa-driiik-
ing, and placed the shell in my hands.

Ugh! The liquor tasted like earth and water, sweet-
ish for a moment and then acrid and pungent. It was
hard to get down, but all the men took theirs at a gulp,
and when Kivi gave me another shellful, I followed their
pattern.

"Kd! Kai: Eat! Eat!" Kivi shouted then. The
women hurried forward with the food, and we fell to
with a will. Pig and popoi, shark sweetbreads, roasted
breadfruit and sweet potatoes, fruits and cocoanut-n?* ? \
leaped' from the broad leaf platters to wide-open moutna.
Hardly a word was spoken. The business of eating
proceeded rapidly, in silence, save for the night-rustling
of the palms and the soft sound of the women's hasten-
ing bare feet.

Only, as he saw any slackening, Kivi repeated vigor-
ously, '^z7 Kail"

I sat with my back against the wall of the house of
Broken Plate, as I ate quickly at the mandate of my
host, and soon I felt the need of this support. The feast
finished, the guests reclined upon the mats. /Women
and children were devouring the remnants left upon the
leaf platters. The torches had been extinguished, all
but one. Its flickering gleam fell upon, the aged face
of Kivi, and the whites of his eyes caught and reflected
the light. The tattooing that framed them appeared
like black holes from which the sparks glmted uncannily,
and the kava mounting to his brain or to mine gave those
sparks a ghastliness that fascinated me in my keen,
somnolent state.

From the shadows where the women crouched the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 209

face of Teata rose like an eerie flower. She had
adorned the two long black plaits of her hair with the
brilliant phosphorescence of Ear of the Ghost Woman,
the strange fungus found on old trees, a favored evening
adornment of the island belles. The handsome flowers
glowed about her bodiless head like giant butterflies,
congruous jewels for such a temptress of such a frolic.
The mysterious light added a gleam to her velvet cheek
and neck that made her seem like the ghost-woman of
old legend, created to lead the unwary to intoxicated

The palaver came to me out of the darkness, like
voices from a phonograph-horn, thin and far away.
One told the tale of Tahiapepae, the Girl Who Lost
Her Strength.

Famine had come upon Atuona Valley. Children
died of hunger on the paepaes, and the breasts of
mothers shrunk so that they gave forth no milk. There-
fore the warriors set forth in the great canoes for
Motopu. Meat was the cry, and there was no other
meat than puaa oa, the "long pig."

Then in the darkness the hungry fighting men of
Atuona silently beached their canoes and crept upon the
sleeping village of Motopu. Seven were killed before
they could fly to the hills, and one was captured alive, a
slender, beautiful girl of ten years, whom they tied hands
and feet and threw into the canoe with the slain ones.

Back they came from their triumph, and landed on
the shore here, within spear's-throw from the paepae of
Broken Plate, Their people met them with drum-beat-
ing and with chanting, bringing rose-wood poles for
carrying the meat. The living girl was slung over the

-10 WHITE SHADOWS

shoulder of the leader, still bound and weeping, and in
single file heroes and their people marched up the trail
pa^t the Catholic mission. Tohoaa, Great Sea Slug,
; hief of Atuona and grandfather of Flag, the gendarme,
\vas foremost, and over his massive shoulder hung the
G-A Who Had Lost Her Strength.

Then from the mission came Pere Orens, crucifix in
hand. Tall he stood in his garment of black, facing the
Great Sea Slug, and lifting on high his hand with the
crucifix in it. Pere Orens had been made tapu by
Great Sea Slug, to whom he had explained the wonders
of the world, and given many presents. To touch him
was death, for Great Sea Slug had given him a feast
and put upon him the white tapa, emblem of sacredness.

Powerful was the god of Pere Orens, and could work
magic. In his pocket he carried always a small god,
that day and night said ff Mika! Mikaf and moved tiny
arms around and around a plate of white metal. This
man stood now before the Great Sea Slug, and the chief
paused, while his hungry people came closer that they
might hear what befell.

"Where are you going?" said Pere Orens.

* 'To Pekia, the High Place, to cook and eat," said
Great Sea Slug. Then for a space Pere Orens re-
mained silent, holding high the crucifix, and the chief
heard from his pocket the voice of the small god speak-
ing.

"Give to me that small piece of living meat," said
Pere Orens then.

"Me mamai oe. If it is your pleasure, take it," said
Great Sea Slug. "It is a trifle. We have enough, and
there is more in Motopu,"

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 211

With these words he placed his burden upon the shoul-
der of the priest, and heading his band again led them
past the mission, over the river and to the H ; gh
Place, where all night long the drums beat at the feast-
ing.

But The Girl Who Lost Her Strength remained in
the house of Pere Orens, who cut her bonds, fed her, and
nursed her to strength again. Baptized and instructed
in the religion of her savior, she was secretly returned to
her surviving relatives. There she lived to a good age,
and died four years ago, grateful always to the God that
had preserved her from the oven.

He who spoke was her son, and here at the kava bowl
together were the men of Motcpu and the men of
Atuona, enemies no longer.

The voice of the Motopu man died away. A ringing
came in my ears as when one puts a seashell to them and
hears the drowsy murmur of the tides. My cigarette
fell from my fingers. A sirocco blew upon me, hot,
stifling. Kivi laughed, and dimly I heard his inquiry:

"Femea? Is it hot?"

ff E, mahandhana. I am very warm," I struggled to
reply*

My voice sounded as that of another. I leaned
harder against the wall and closed my eyes.

"He goes fast," said Broken Plate, gladly.

A peace passing the understanding of the JC^-ITTO-
rant was upon me. Life was a slumbrous calm ; not dull
inertia, but a separated activity, as if the spirit roamed
in a garden of beauty, and the body, all suffering, all
feeling past, resigned itself to quietude.

I heard faintly the chants of the men as they began

212 WHITE SHADOWS

improvising the after-feasting entertainment. I was
perfectly aware of being lifted by several women to
within the house, and of being laid upon mats that were
as soft to my body as the waters of a quiet sea. It was
as if angels bore me on a cloud. All toil, all effort was
over; I should never return to care and duty* Dimly I
saw a peri waving a fan, making a breeze scented with
ineffable fragrance.

I was then a giant, prone in an endless ease, who
stretched from the waterfall at the topmost point of the
valley to the shore of the sea, and about me ran in many
futile excitements the natives of Atuona, small creatures
whose concerns were naught to me.

That vision melted after eons, and I was in the Oti
dance in the Paumotas, where those old women who
pose and move by the music of the drums, in the light of
the burning cocoanut husks, leap into the air and remain
so long that the white man thinks he sees the law of
gravitation overcome, remaining fixed in space three or
four feet from the ground while one's heart beats madly
and one's brain throbs in bewilderment, I was among
these aged women; I surpassed them all, and floated at
will upon the ether in an eternal witches' dance of more
than human delight

The orchestra of nature began a symphony of celestial
sounds. The rustling of the palm-leaves, the purling
of the brook, and the song of the Jcomoko^ nightingale of
the Marquesas, mingled in music sweeter to my kava-
ravished ears than ever the harp of Apollo upon Mount
Olympus. The chants of the natives were a choir of
voices melodious beyond human imaginings. Life was

IN THE 213

good to its innermost core; there was no straggle, no
pain, only an eternal harmony of joy,

0, * * * *
I slept eight honrs, and when I awoke I saw* In the
bright oblong of sunlight outside the open door, Kivi
squeezing some of the root of evil for a hair of the hound
that had bitten him.

CHAPTER XX

A journey to Taaoa; Kahuiti, the cannibal chief, and his story of an
old war caused by an unfaithful woman.

IT was a chance remark from Mouth of God that
led me to take a journey over the hills to the valley
of Taaoa, south of Atuona. Malicious Gossip
and her husband, squatting one evening on my mats in
the light of the stars, spoke of the Marquesan custom in
naming children*

"When a babe is born/' said Mouth of God, "all the
intimates of his parents, their relatives and friends, be-
stow a name upon the infant. All these names refer to
experiences of the child's ancestors, or of the namers,
or of their ancestors. My wife's names a few of them
are Tavahi Teikimoetetua Tehaupiimouna. These
words are separate, having no relation one to another,
and they mean Malicious Gossip, She Sleeps with
God, The Golden Dews of the Mountain.

"My first three names are Vahatetua Heeafia
Timeteo. Vahatetua is Mouth of God; Heeafia, One
Who Looks About, and Timeteo is Marquesan for
Tircothee, the Bible writer.

"My uncle, the Catechist, is Tioakoekoe, Man Whose
Entrails Were Roasted on a Stick, and his brother is
called Pootuhatuha, meaning Sliced and Distributed.
That is because their father, Tufetu, was killed at the
Stinking Springs in Taaoa, and was cooked and sent all

214

IN THE SOUTH SEAS AT

>ver that valley. You should see that man who killed
aim, Kahuiti! He is a great man, and strong still,
though old. He likes the 'iong pig' still, also. It is
lot long since he dug up the corpse of one buried, and
ite it in the forest/'

When I said that I should indeed like to see that man.
Mouth of God said that he would send a word of intro-
duction that should insure for me the friendliness of
the chief who had devoured his grandfather. Mouth of
God bore the diner no ill-will. The eating was a thing
accomplished in the past; the teachings of that stern
Calvinist, his mother, forbade that he should eat Kaliuiti
in retaliation, therefore their relations were amicable*

The following morning, attended by the faithful Ex-
ploding Eggs, I set out toward Taaoa Valley. The
way was all up and down, five miles, wading through
marshy places and streams, parting the jungle, caught
by the thorns and dripping with sweat. Miles of it was
through cocoanut forests owned by the mission.

The road followed the sea and climbed over a lof ly
little cape, Otupoto, from which the coast of Hiva-oa, as
it curves eastward, was unrolled, the valleys mysterious
caverns in the torn, convulsed panorama, gloomy gullies
suggestive of the old bloody days. Above them the
mountains caught the light and shone green or black
under the cloudless blue sky. Seven valleys we counted,
the distant ones mere faint shadows in the ercppxss of
varied green, divided by the rocky headlands. To the
right, as we faced the sea, was the point of Teaehoa jut-
ting out into the great blue plain of the ocean, and land-
ward we looked down on the Valley of Taaoa.

This was the middle place, the scene of Tufetu's

^ WHITE SHADOWS

violent end. A great splotch of red gleamed as a blot
of blood on the green floor of the hollow.

ff 7ai piauF said Exploding Eggs. He made a sign
of lifting water in his hands, of tasting and spitting it
out. The Stinking Springs where Tufetu was slain 1

They were in a fantastic gorge, through which ran a
road bksted from solid rock, stained brown and blue by
the minerals in the water that bubbled there and had
carved the stone in eccentric patterns. Bicarbonate of
soda and sulphur thickened the heavy air and encrusted
the edges of the spring with yellow scum* A fitting
scene for a deadly battle, amid smells of sulphur and
brimstone! But it was no place in which to linger on a
tropic day,

Taaoa Valley was narrow and deep, buried in per-
petual gloom by the shadows of the mountains. Per-
haps thirty houses lined the banks of a swift and rocky
torrent. As we approached them we were met by a
sturdy Taaoan, bare save for the pareu and handsomely
tattooed. His name, he said, was Strong in Battle, and
I, a stranger, must see first of all a tree of wonder that
lay in the forest nearby.

Through brush and swamp we searched for it, past
scores of mined paepaes, homes of the long-dead thou-
sands. We found it at length, a mighty tree felled to
the earth and lying half -buried in vine and shrub.

"This tree is older than our people," said Strong in
Battle, mournfully regarding its prostrate length.
"Xo man ever remembered its beginning. It was like a
house upon a hill, so high and big. Our forefathers
worshipped their gods under it. The white men cut it

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 217

to make planks. That was fifty years ago, but the
wood never dies. There is no wood like it in the Mar-
quesas. The wise men say that it will endure till the
last of our race is gone.

I felt the end of the great trunk, where the marks of
the axe and saw still showed, and struck it with my fist.
The wood did indeed seem hard as iron, though it
seemed not to be petrified. So far as I could ascertain
from the fallen trunk, it was of a species I had never
seen.

"Twenty years ago I brought a man of Peretane
(England) here to see this tree, and he cut off a piece to
take away. No white man has looked on it since that
time," said Strong in Battle. He brought an axe from
a man who was dubbing out a canoe from a breadfruit
log, and hacked away a chip for me.

We returned to the village and entered an enclosure
in which a group of women were squatting around a
popoi bowL

"What does the Menike seek?" they asked.

"He wants to see the footprint of Hoouiti," said my
guide.

On one of the stones of the paepae was a footprint,
perfect from heel to toe, and evidently not artificially
made.

"Hoouiti stood here when he hurled his spear across
the island, 35 said Strong in Battle. "He was not a big
man, as you see by his foot's mark.'*

"Fifteen kilometers! A long hurling of a spear,"
said I.

ff Aue! he was very strong. He lived on this paepae.

218 WHITE SHADOWS

These whom you see are his children's children. Would
you like to meet my wife's father-in-law, Kahuiti? He
has eaten many people. He talks well."

Eo! Would I ! I vowed that I would be honored by
the acquaintance of any of the relatives of my host, and
specially I desired to converse with old, wise men of
good taste.

"That man, Kahauiti, has seen life/* said Strong in
Battle. "I am married to the sister of Great Night
Moth, who was a very brave and active man, but now
foolish. But Kahauiti ! O ! 1 O I Ai ! Ai 1 Ai ! There
he is."

I never solved the puzzle of my informant's relation
to the man who was his wife's father-in-law, for sud-
denly I saw the man himself, and knew that I was meet-
ing a personage. Kahauiti was on the veranda of a
small hut, sitting Turk fashion, and chatting with an-
other old man. Both of them were string-looking,
but, all in all, I thought Kahauiti the most distinguished
man in appearance that I had seen, be it in New York
or Cairo, London or Pekin.

He had that indefinable, yet certain, air of superiority,
of assured position and knowledge, that stamps a few
men in the world a Yuan Shih Kai, Rabindranath
Tagore, Sitting Bull, and Porfirio Diaz. He wore only
a pareu, and was tattooed from toenails to hair-roots,
A solid mass of coloring extended from Ms neck to the
hip on the left side, as though he wore half of a blue
shirt. The tahuna who had done the work seemed to
have drawn outlines and then blocked in the half of his
torso. But remembering that every pin-point of color
had meant the thrust of a bone needle propelled by the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 21D

blow of a mallet, I realized that Kahauiti had endure r l
much for his decorations. Xo iron or ^ ? 'ictoria Cro*s
could cost more &;:iferir.^.

The bare half of his bosom, cooperish-red-, contrasted
with this cobalt, and his face was striped alternately
with this natural color and with blue* Two inches of
the ania ink ran across the eyes from ear to ear, covering
every inch of lid and eyebrow, and from this seeming
bandage his eyes gleamed with quick and alert intelli-
gence. Other stripes crossed the face from temple to
chin, the lowest joining the field of blue that stretched to
his waist.

His beard, long, heavy, -and snow-white, swept down-
ward over the indigo flesh and was gathered into a knot
on his massive chest. It was the beard of a prophet or
a seer, and when Kahauiti rose to his full height, six
feet and a half, he was as majestic as a man in diadem
and royal robes. He had a giant form, like one of
Buonarroti's ancients, muscular and supple, graceful
and erect.

When I was presented as a Menike who loved the
Marquesans and who, having heard of Kahauiti, would
drink of his fountain of recollections, the old man looked
at me intently. His eyes twinkled and he opened his
mouth in a broad smile, showing all his teeth, sound and
white. His smile was kindly, disarming, of a real
sweetness that conquered me immediately, so that, fool-
ishly perhaps, I would have trusted him if he had sug-
gested a stroll in the jungle.

He took my extended hand, but did not shake it. So
new is handshaking and so foreign to their ideas of
greeting, that they merely touch fingers, with the pres-

220 WHITE SHADOWS

sure a rich man giver a poor relation, or a king, a com*
moner. His affability was that of a monarch to a
courtier, but when he began to talk he soon became sim-
ple and merry*

Motioning me to a seat on the mat before him, he
squatted again in a dignified manner, and resumed his
task of plaiting a rope of faufee bark, a rope an inch
thick and perfectly made.

"Mouth of God, of the family of Sliced and Dis-
tributed and Man Whose Entrails Were Roasted On A
Stick, has told me of the slaying of Tufetu, their an-
cestor," I ventured, to steer our bark of conversation
into the channel I sought.

At the names of the first three, Kahauiti smiled, but
when Tufetu was mentioned, he broke into a roar. I
had evidently recalled proud memories. On his
haunches, he slid nearer to me.

"Afu! Afu! Aju!" he said, the sound that in his
tongue means the groan of the dying. "You came by

"I tasted the water and smelled the smell/' I
answered.

"It was there that Tufetu died," he observed. "I
struck the blow, and I ate his arm, his right arm, for
he was brave and strong. That was a war!"

"What caused that war?" I asked the merry cannibal

"A woman, Tiaa teketeka, an unfaithful woman, as
always," replied Kahauiti. "Do you have trouble over
women in your island? Yes. It is the same the world
over. There was peace between Atuona and Taaoa be-
fore this trouble. When I was a boy we were good
friends. We visited across the hills. Many children

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 221

were adopted, and Taaoa men took women from
Atuona, and Atuona men from here. Some of these
women had two or three or five men. One husband was
the father of her children in title and pride, though he
might be no father at all. The others shared the mat
with her at her will, but had no possession or happiness
in the offspring.

"Now Pepehi (Beaten to Death) was of Taaoa, but
lived in Atuona with a woman. He had followed her
over the hills and lived in her house. He was father to
her children. There was a man of Atuona, Kahuetahi,
who was husband to her, but of lower rank. He was
not father to her children. Therefore one night he
swung his war-club upon the head of Beaten to Death,
and later invited a number of friends to the feast/'

Kahuiti smiled gently upon me. Take off his tattoo-
ing, make him white, and clothe him! With his master-
ful carriage, his soft, cultivated voice, and his attitude
of absolutism, he might have been Leopold, King of the
Belgians, a great ambassador, a man of power in finance.
Nevertheless, I thought of the death by the Stinking
Springs. How could one explain his benign, open-
souled deportment and his cheery laugh, with such
damnable appetites and actions? Yet generals send
ten thousand men to certain and agonized death to gain
a point toward a goal; that is the custom of generals,
by which they gain honor among their people.

"Killed by the war-club of Kaheutahi and eaten by
his friends, Beaten to Death was but a ghost, and
Kaheutahi took his place and became father of the chil-
dren of the house. He said they were his in fact, but
men were ever boastful/*

222 WHITE SHADOWS

The other old man, who said nothing, but was all at-
tention, lit a pipe and passed it to Kahuiti, who puffed
ifc a moment and passed it to Strong in Battle* The tafe
lapsed for a smoking spell.

"Beaten to Death perished by the club ? He was weH
named," said I. "His father was a prophet/*

Kahuiti began to chant in a weird monotone.

(f Val Val A tahi a ta! Fa! A tahi va? A ua va! A tu&
va!" was his chant. "Thus said the war-club as it
crashed on the skull of Beaten to Death. That is the
speech of the war-club when it strikes. The bones of
Beaten to Death were fishhooks before we knew of his
death* All Taaoa was angry. The family of Beatea
to Death demanded vengeance. The priest went into
the High Place, and when he came out he ran all day
up and down the valley, until he fell foaming. Waar
was the cry of the gods, war against Atuona.

"But there was too much peace between us, too many
mea with Atuona women, too many Atuona children
adopted by Taaoa women. The peace was happy, and
there was no great warrior to urge."

"You had brave men and strong men then/* I said,
with a sigh for the things I had missed by coming late.

"Twtw! You put weeds in my mouth 1" exclaimed
Kahuiti. "I cannot talk with your words. Ue te etaul
By the great god of the dead! I aih bom before the
French beached a canoe in the Marquesas. Our gods
jvere gods then, but they turned to wood and stone when
the tree-guns of the Farani roared and threw iron balls
and fire into our valleys. The Christian god was
greater than our gods, and a bigger killer of men/'

"But Beaten to Death?" I

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 223

"Beaten to Death was in the stomachs of the men of
Atuona, and they laughed at us. Our High Priest
said that the Euwtutuki, the most private god of the
priests, commanded us to avenge the eating of Beaten
to Death. But the season of preserving the mei in
pits was upon us. Also the women of Atuona among
us said that there should be peace, and the women of
Taaoa who had taken as their own many children from
Atuona. Therefore we hegged the most high gods to

excuse us."

"Women had much power then," I said.

Kahuiti chuckled.

"The French god and the priests of the Farani have
taken it from them," he commented. "I have known
the day when women ruled. She had her husbands,
two, four, five. She commanded. She would send two
to the fishing, one to gathering cocoanuts or wood, one
she would keep to amuse her. They came and went as
she said. That was mea pe! Sickening! Pee! There
are not enough men to make a woman happy. Many
brave men have died to please their woman, but "
He blew out his breath in contempt.

Strong in Battle said aside, in French:

"He was never second in the house, Kahauiti de-
spised such men. He was first always."

"So the slaying of Beaten to Death was unavenged?'*
I asked.

f *Epo! Do not drink the cocoanut till you have
descended the tree! I have said the warriors were
withheld by the women, and there was no great man to
lead. Yet the drums beat at night, and the fighting
men came. You know how the drums speak?"

224 WHITE SHADOWS

His face clouded, and his eyes flashed against their
foil of tattooing.

tr f Oke te pepe! Ohe te pepe! Ohe te pepe!' said
the drum called Peepee. 'Titiutiuti! Titiutiutil* said
the drum called Umi. Aue! Then the warriors came!
They stood in the High Place at the head of the valley.
Mehitete, the chief, spoke to them. He said that they
should go to Atuona, and bring back bodies for feasting.
Many nights the drums beat, and the chief talked much,
but there was no war.

"The High Priest went to the Pekia again, and when
he came away he ran without stopping for two days
and a night, till he fell without breath, as one dead,
and foam was on his mouth. The gods were angry,
Still there was no war.

"Then came Tomefitu from Vait-hua. He was chief
of that valley, having been adopted by a woman of
Vait-hua, but his father and his mother were of Taaoa.
He had heard of the slaying of Beaten to Death, his
kinsman, and he was hot in the bowels. Aue I The
thunder of the heavens was as the voice of Tomefitu
when angered. The earth groaned where he walked*
He knew the Farani and their tricks. He had guns
from the whalers, and he was afraid of nothing save
the Ghost Woman of the Night. Again the warriors
came to the High Place, and now there ,were many
drums."

Kahuiti sprang to his feet. He struck the corner
post of the hut with his fist. His eyes burned.

" *Kaputuhe ! Kaputuhe ! Kaputuhe J
Teputuhe! Teputuhe! Teputuhe . r
Tuti ! Tuti ! Tutuituiti P

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 225

"That was what the war drums said. The sound of
them rolled from the Pekia, and every man who could
throw a spear or hold a war-club came to their call/'

Kahuiti's soul was rapt in the story. His voice had
the deep tone of the violoncello, powerful, vibrant, and
colorful. He had lived in that strange past, and the
things he recalled were precious memories.

The sound of the drums, as he echoed them in the
curious tone-words of Marquesan, thrilled me through.
I heard the booming of the ten-foot war-drums, their
profound and far-reaching call like the roaring of lions
in the jungle. I saw the warriors with their spears of
cocoanut-wood and their deadly clubs of ironwood
carved and shining with oil, their baskets of polished
stones slung about their waists, and their slings of fiber,
dancing in the sacred grove of the Pekia, its shadows
lighted by the blaze of the flickering candlenuts and the
scented sandalwood.

" 'I am The Wind That Lays Low The Mighty Tree.
I am The Wave That Fills The Canoe and Delivers The
People To The Sharks!' said Tomefitu. 'The flesh of
my kinsman fills the bellies of the men of Atuona, and
the gods say war!

"'There is war!' said Tomefitu. *We must bring
offerings to the gods. Five men will go with me to
Otoputo and bring back the gifts. I will bring back to
you the bodies of six of the Atuona pigs. Prepare!
When we have eaten, the chiefs of Atuona will come to
Taaoa, and then you will fight!

"'Make ready with dancing. Polish spears and
gather stones for the slings. Koe, who is my man, will be
obeyed while I am gone. I have spoken/ said Tomefitu.

226 WHITE SHADOWS

"That night Tomefitu and I, with four others, went
silently to Otoputo, the dividing rock that looks down
on the right into the valley of Taaoa and on the left into
Atuona. There we lay among rocks and bushes and
spied upon the feet of the enemy. That man who sepa-
rated himself from others and came our way to seek
food, or to visit at the house of a friend, him we secretly
fell upon, and slew.

"Thus we did to the six named by Tomefitu, and as we
killed them, we sent them back by others to the High
Place* There the warriors feasted upon them and
gained strength for battle*

"Then, missing so many of their clan, the head men of
Atuona came to Otoputo, and shouted to us to give
word of the absent. We shouted back, saying that
those men had been roasted upon the fire and eaten, and
that thus we would do to all men of Atuona. And we
laughed at them. 5 '

Kahuiti emitted a hearty guffaw at thought of the
trick played upon those devoured enemies.

"But Tufetu, the grandfather of my friend Mouth
of God?" I persisted.

ff Epo! There was war. The men of Atuona gath-
ered at Otupoto, and rushed down upon us. We met
them at the Stinking Springs, and there I killed Tufetu,
uncle of Sliced and Distributed and Man Whose En-
trails Were Roasted On A Stick. I pierced him
through with my spear at a cocoanut-tree's length away.
I was the best spear-thrower of Taaoa. We drove the
Atuonans through the gorge of the Stinking Springs
and over the divide, and I ate the right arm of Tufetu

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 227

that had wielded the war-club. That gives a man the
strength of his enemy."

He turned again to plaiting the rope of faufee.

"O ia aneihe, I have finished," he said. "Will you
drink kava?"

"No, I will not drink kava" I said sternly, "Ka-
huiti, is it not good that the eating of men is ^topped?"

The majestic chief looked at me, his deep brown eyes
looking child-like in their band of blue ink. For ten
seconds he stared at me fixedly, and then smiled uncer-
tainly, as may have Peter the fisherman when he was
chided for cutting off the ear of one of Judas' soldiers.
He was of the old order, and the new had left him un-
changed. He did not reply to my question, but sipped
his bowl of kava.

CHAPTER XXI

The crime of Huahine for love of Weaver of Mats; story of Tahia's white
man who was eaten; the disaster that befell Honi, the white man who
used his harpoon against his friends.

DURING my absence in Taaoa there had been
crime and scandal in my own valley. Andre
Bauda met me on the beach road as I returned
and told me the tale. The giant Tahitian sailor of the
schooner Papeite, Huahine, was in the local jail, charged
with desertion; a serious offense, to which his plea was
love of a woman, and that woman Weaver of Mats, who
had her four names tattooed on her right arm.

Huahine, seeing her upon the beach, had felt a flame
of love that nerved him to risk hungry shark and bat-
tering surf. Carried from her even in the moment of
meeting, he had resisted temptation until the schooner
was sailing outside the Bay of Traitors, running before
a breeze to the port of Tai-o-hae, and then he had flung
himself naked into the sea and taken the straight course
back to Atuona, reaching his sweetheart after a seven-
hour's struggle with current and breaker. Flag, the
gendarme, found him in her hut, and brought him to
the calaboose.

The following morning I attended his trial. He
came before his judge elegantly dressed, for, besides a
red pareu about his middle, he wore a pink silk shawl
over his shoulders. Both were the gift of Weaver of
Mats, as he had come to her without scrip or scrap. He

228

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 229

needed little clothing, as his skin was very brown and
his strong body r;:r^.,!!l:,\vL,

He was an acceptable prisoner to Bauda, who had
charge of the making and repair of roads and bridges,
so Huahine was quickly sentenced and put to work with
others who were paying their taxes by labor. Weaver
of Mats moved with him to the prison, where they lived
together happily, cooking their food in the garden and
sleeping on mats beneath the palms.

On all the paepaes it was said that Huahine would
probably be sent to Tahiti, as there are strict laws
against deserting ships and against vagabondage in the
Marquesas. Meantime the prisoner was happy.
Many a Tahitian and white sailor gazes toward these
islands as a haven from trouble, and in Huahine's ex-
ploit I read the story of many a poor white who in the
early days cast away home and friends and arduous toil
to dwell here in a breadfruity harem.

"There is a tale told long ago by a man of Hanamenu
to a traveler named Christian," I said to Haabunai, the
carver, while we sat rolling pandanus cigarettes in the
cool of the evening. "It runs thus :

"Some thirty years ago a sailor from a trading
schooner that had put into the bay for sandalwood was
badly treated by his skipper, who refused him shore-
leave. So, his bowels hot with anger, this sailor deter-
mined to desert his hard and unthanked toil, wed some
island heiress, and live happy ever after. Therefore
one evening he swam ashore, found a maid to his liking,
and was hidden by her until the ship departed.

"Now Tahia was a good wife, and loved her beautiful
white man; all that a wife could do she did, cooking his

230 WHITE SHADOWS

food, bathing liis feet, rolling cigarettes for him all day
long as he lay upon the mats. But her father in time
became troubled, and there was grumbling among the
people, for the white man would not work.

"He would not climb the palm to bring down the
nuts; he lay and laughed on his paepae in the Meinui,
the season of breadfruit, when all were busy; and when
they brought him rusty old muskets to care for, he
turned his back upon them. Sometimes he fished, go-
ing out in a canoe that Tahia paddled, and making her
fix the bait on the hook, but he caught few fish.

" *Aue te hanakana, aua ho'i te kaikaif said his father-
in-law. *He who will not labor, neither shall he eat'
But the white man laughed and ate and labored not.

"A season passed and another, and there came a time
of little rain. The bananas were few, and the bread-
fruit were not plentiful. One evening, therefore, the
old men met in conference, and this was their decision:
Uats are becoming a nuisance, and we will abate them/

"Next morning the father sent Tahia on an errand to
another valley. Then men began to dig a large oven in
the earth before Tahia's house, where the white man lay
on the mats at ease. Presently he looked and wondered
and looked again. And at length he rose and came
down to the oven, saying, 'What's up?'

" Tlenty kaikai. Big pig come by and by,' they said,

"So he stood waiting while they dug, 'and no pig came.
Then he said, 'Where is the pig?' And at that moment
the ufu crashed upon his skull, so that he fell without life
and lay in the oven. Wood was piled about him, and
he was baked, and there was feasting in Hanamenu.

"In the twilight Tahia came over the hills, weary and

IX THE SOUTH SEAS 281

hungry, and asked for her white man. 'He has gone to
the beach,' they said.

" 'He will return soon, therefore sit and eat, my
daughter/ said her father, and gave her the meat
wrapped in leaves. So she ate heartily, and waited for
her husband. And all the feasters laughed at her, so
that little by little she learned the truth. She said noth-
ing, but went away in the darkness.

"And it is written, Haabunai, that searchers for the
mei came upon her next day in the upper valley, and she
was hanging from a tall palm-tree with a rope of purau
about her neck."

"That may be a true story, 95 said Haabunai.
"'Thou/I: it is the custom here to eat the eva when one
is made sick by life. And very few white men were
ever eaten in the islands, because they knew too much
and were claimed by some woman of power,'* He
paused for a moment to puff his cigarette.

"Now there was a sailor whom my grandfather ate,
and he was white. But there was ample cause for that,
for never was a man so provoking,

"He was a harpooner on a whale-ship, a man who made
much money, but he liked rum, and when his ship left he
stayed behind. They sent two boats ashore and
searched for him, but my grandfather sent my father
with him into the hills, and after three days the cap-
tain thought he had been drowned, and sailed away with-
out him.

"My grandfather gave him my father's sister to wife,
and like that man of whom you told, he was much loved
by her, though he would do nothing but make namu
enata and drink it and dance and sleep. Grandfather

232 WHITE SHADOWS

said that he could dance strange dances of the sailor that
made them all laugh until their ribs were sore.

"This man, whose name was Honi "

"Honi?" said L "I do not know that word."

"Xor I. It is not Marquesan. It was his name, that
he bore on the ship."

"Honi?" I repeated incredulously, and then light
broke. "You mean Jones?"

"It may be. I do not know. Honi was his name, as
my grandfather said it. And this Honi had brought
from the whale-ship a gun and a harpoon. This har-
poon had a head of iron and was fixed on a spear, with a
long rope tied to the head, so that when^it was thrust into
the whale he was fastened to the boat that pursued him
through the water. There was no weapon like it on the
island, and it was much admired.

"Honi fought with us when our tribe, the Papuaei,
went to war with the Tiu of Taaoa. He used his gun,
and with it he won many battles, until he had killed so
many of the enemy that they asked for peace. Honi
was praised by our tribe, and a fine house was built for
him near the river, in the place where eels and shrimp
were best.

"In this large house, he drank more than in the other
smaller one. He used his gun to kill pigs and even
birds. My grandfather reproved him for wasting the
powder, when pigs could easily be killed with spears,
But Honi would not listen, and he continued to kill until
he had no more powder. Then he quarreled with my
grandfather, and one, day, being drunk, he tried to kill
him, and then fled to the Kau-i-te-oho, the tribe of red-
headed people at Hanahupe.

THE SOUTH SEAS 238

"Learning that Honi was no longer with us, the Till
tribe of Taaoa declared war again, and the red-headed
tribe had an alliance with them through their chief's
families intermarrying, so that Honi fought with them*
His gun being without powder, he took his harpoon, and
he came with the Tui and the Kau-i-te-oho to the divid-
ing-line between the valleys where we used to fight.

"Where the precipices reared their middle points be-
tween the valleys, the tribes met and reviled one another.

" 'You people with hair like cooked shrimp ! Are
you ready for the ovens of our v-alley? 5 cried my grand-
father's warriors.

" * You little men, who run so fast, we have now your
white warrior with us, and you shall die by the hun-
dreds!' yelled our enemies."

This picture of the scene at the line was characteristic
of Polynesian warfare. It is almost exactly like the
meeting of armies long ago in Palestine and Syria, and
before the walls of Troy. Goliath slanged David
grossly, threatening to give his body to the fowls of the
air and the beasts of the field, and David retorted in
kind. So, when Ulysses launched his spear at Soccus,
he cried:

"Ah, wretch, no father shall they corpse compose,
Thy dying eye no tender mother close ;
But hungry birds shall tear those balls away.
And hungry vultures scream around their prey.**

"For a quarter of an hour," said Haabunai, "my
grandfather's people and the warriors of the enemy
called thus to each other upon the topv of the cliffs, and
then Honi and the brother of my grandfather, head men
of either side, advanced to battle.

234 WHITE SHADOWS

"The first time Honi threw his harpoon, he hooked
my great-uncle. He hooked him through the middle,
and before he could be saved, a half dozen of the Tiu
men pulled on the rope and dragged him over the line
to be killed and eaten.

"Two more of our tribe Honi snared with this devilish
spear, and it was not so much death as being pulled over
to them and roasted that galled us. All day the battle
raged, except when both sides stopped by agreement to
eat popoi and rest, but late in the afternoon a strange
thing happened,

"Honi had thrown his harpoon, and by bad aim it en-
tered a tree. The end of the line he had about his left
arm, and as he tried to pull out the spear-head from the
wood, his legs became entangled in the rope, and my
grandfather, who was very strong, seized the rope near
the tree, dragged the white man over the line, and killed
him with a rock.

"The enemy ran away then, and that night our people
ate Honi. Grandfather said his flesh was so tough they
had to boil it. There were 010 tipoti (Standard-oil
cans) in those days, but our people took banana leaves
and formed a big cup that would hold a couple of quarts
of water, and into these they put red-hot stones, and the
water boiled* Grandfather said they cut Honi into
small pieces and boiled him in many of these cups. Still
he was tough, but nevertheless they ate him.

"Honi was tattooed. Not like Marquesans, but like
some white sailors, he had certain marks on him.
Grandfather saved these marks, and wore them as a tiM,
or amulet, until he died, when he gave it to me. He
had preserved the skin so that it did not spoil*"

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

Haabunai yawned and said his mouth was parched
from much talking, but when a shell of rum was set be-
fore him and he had drunk, he fetched from his house
the tiki. It was as large as my hand, dark and with-
ered, but with a magnifying glass I could see a rude
cross and three letters, I H S in blue.

"Grandfather became a Christian and was no longer
an enat a kaikaia, an eater of men, but he kept the tiki al-
ways about his neck, because he thought it gave him
strength," said my guest.

I handed him back the gruesome relic, though he be-
gan advances to make it my property. For the full
demijohn he would hare parted with the tiki that had
been his grandfather's, but I had no fancy for it. One
can buy in Paris purses of human skin for not much
more than one of alligator hide.

"Honi must have been very tough/' I said.

"He must have been," Haabunai said regretfully*
"Grandfather had his teeth to the last. He would never
eat a child. Like all warriors he preferred for ven-
geance's sake the meat of another fighter/*

He had not yet sprung the grim jest of almost all
cannibalistic narratives. I did not ask if Horn's wife
had eaten of him, as had Tahia of her white man. It is
probable that she did, and that they deceived her. It
was the practical joke of those days.

I had seen Apporo, my landlady, staggering home-
ward a few days earlier in a pitiful state of intoxi-
cation* Some one had given her a glass of mixed
absinthe, vermuth, and rum, and with confidence in
the giver she had tossed it down. That is the kind
of joke that in other days would have been the de-

236 WHITE SHADOWS

lading of some one into partaking of the flesh of a lover
or friend.

Reasoning from our standpoint, it is easy to assume
that cannibalism is a form of depravity practised by few
peoples, but this error is dispelled by the researches of
ethnologists, who inform us that it was one of the most
ancient customs of man and began when he was close
brother to the ape, Livingstone, when he came upon it
on the Dark continent, concluded that the negroes came
to that horrible desire from their liking for the meat of
gorillas, which so nearly approach man in appearance.
Herodotus, writing twenty-five hundred years ago,
mentions the Massagetae who coiled the flesh of their
old folks with that of cattle, both killed for the occasion.
Cannibalism marked the life of all peoples in days of
savagery.

Plutarch says that Cataline's associates gave proof of
their loyalty to that agitator and to one another by sac-
rificing and eating a man. Achilles expressed his wish
that he might devour Hector. The Kafirs ate their
own children in the famine of 1857, and the Germans
ate one another when starvation maddened them, long
after Maryland and Massachusetts had become thriv-
ing settlements in the New World. There is a historic
instance of a party of American pioneers lost in the
mountains of California in the nineteenth century, who
in their last extremity of hunger ate several of the party.

To devour dead relatives, to kill and eat the elders, to
feast upon slaves and captives, even for mothers to eat
their children, were religious and tribal rites for many
tens of thousands of years. We have records of these
customs spread over the widest areas of the world.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 237

Undoubtedly cannibalism began as a question of food
supply* In early times when man, emerging from the
purely animal stage, was without agricultural skill, and
lived in caves or trees, his fellow was his easiest prey.
The great beasts were too fierce and powerful for his
feeble weapons except when luck favored him, and the
clan or family, or even the single brave hunter, sought
the man-meat by stealth or combat, or in times of stress
ate those nearest and dearest.

Specially among peoples whose principal diet is
heavy, starchy food, such as the breadfruit, the demand
for meat is keen. I saw Marquesan women eating in-
sects, worms, and other repellant bits of flesh out of
sheer instinct and stomachic need. When salt is not to
be had, the desire for meat is most intense. In these
valleys the upper tribes, whose enemies shut them off
from the sea with its salt and fish, were the most per-
sistent cannibals, and the same condition exists in Africa
to-day, where the interior tribes eat any corpse, while
none of the coast tribes are guilty.

As the passion for cannibalistic feasts grew, and it
became a passion akin to the opium habit in some, the
supply of other meat had little to do with its continu-
ance. In New Britain human bodies were sold in the
shops ; in the Solomon Islands victims were fattened like
cattle, and on the upper Congo an organized traffic is
carried on in these empty tenements of the human soul.

Although cannibalism originated in a bodily need,
man soon gave it an emotional and spiritual meaning,
as he has given them to all customs that have their root
in his physical being. Two forms of cannibalism seem
to have existed among the first historic peoples. One

238 WHITE SHADOWS

was concerned with the eating of relatives and intimates,
for friendship's sake or to gain some good quality they
possessed. Thus when babies died, the Chavante
mothers, on the Uruguay, ate them to regain their souls,
Russians ate their fathers, and the Irish, if Strabo is
to be credited, thought it good to eat both deceased par-
ents. The Lhopa of Sikkim, in Tibet, eat the bride's
mother at the wedding feast.

But Maori cannibalism, with its best exposition in the
Marquesas, was due to a desire for revenge, cooking and
eating being the greatest of insults. It was an expres-
sion of jingoism, a hatred 'for all outside the tribe or
valley, and it made the feud between valleys almost in-
cessant*

It was in no way immoral, for morals are the best tra-
ditions and ways of each race, and here the eating of
enemies was authorized by every teaching of priest and
leader, by time-honored custom and the strongest dic-
tates of nature.

White men and Chinese, in fact, all foreigners, were
seldom eaten here. There were exceptions when ven-
geance impelled, such at that of Honi or Jones, whom
Haabunai's grandfather ate, but as a rule they were
spared and indeed cherished, as strange visitors who
might teach the people useful things. Only their own
depravity brought them to the oven.

At such times, the feast was even a disagreeable rite.
It is a fact that the Marquesan disliked the flesh of a
white man. They said he was too salty. Hundreds of
years ago the Aztecs, according to Bernal Diaz, who
was there, complained that "the flesh of the Spaniards
failed to afford even nourishment, since it was intoler-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

ably bitter." This, though the Indians were dyV jtie,
starvation by hundreds of thousands in the mere*, be-
siege of Mexico City. *'S

Standards of barbarity vary. Horrible and revolt-
ing as the very mention of cannibalism is to us, it should
be remembered that it rested upon an attitude toward
the foreigner and the slave that in some degree still per-
sists everywhere in the world. Outside the tribe, the
savage recognized no kindred humanity. Members of
every clan save his own were regarded as strange and
contemptible beings, outlandish and barbarous in man-
ners and customs, not to be regarded as sharers of a
common birthright. This attitude toward the stranger
did not at all prevent the cannibal from being, within
his own tribe, a gentle, merry, and kindly individual.

Even toward the stranger the Marquesan was never
guilty of torture of any kind. Though they slew and
ate, they had none of the refinements of cruelty of the
Romans, not even scalping enemies as did the Scythians,
Visigoths, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons. In their most
bloody wars they often paused in battle to give the
enemy time to eat and to rest, and there is no record
of their ever ringing a valley about with armed war-
riors and starving to death the women and children
within. Victims for the gods were struck down with-
out warning, so that they might not suffer even the
pangs of anticipation. The thumb-screw and rack of
Christendom struck with horror those of my cannibal
friends to whom I mentioned them.

CHAPTER XXII

The memorable game for the matches in the cocoanut-grove of Lam Kai Oo,

PARABLES are commonly found in books. In
a few words on a printed page one sees a uni-
versal problem made small and clear, freed from
those large uncertainties and whimsies of chance that
make life in the whole so confusing to the vision. It
was my fortune to see, in the valley of Atuona on Hiva-
oa, a series of incidents which were at the time a whirl
of unbelievable merriment, yet which slowly clarified
themselves into a parable, while I sat later considering
them on the leaf -shaded paepae of the House of the
Golden Bed.

They began one afternoon when I dropped down to
the palace to have a smoke with M. L'Hennier des
Plantes, the governor. As I mounted the steps I be-
held on the veranda the governor, stern, though perspir-
ing, in his white ducks, confronting a yellowish stranger
on crutches who pleaded in every tone of anguish for
some boon denied him.

"Non! Nol Nai!" said the governor, poly-linguisti-
cally emphatic. "It cannot be donel" He dropped
into a chair and poured himself an inch of Pernod, as the
defeated suitor turned to me in despair.

He was short and of a jaundiced hue, his soft brown
eyes set slightly aslant. Although lame, he had an
alertness and poise unusual in the sea's spawn of these
beaches* In Tahitian, Marquesan, and French, wit!

240

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

now and then an English word, he explained that he,
a Tahitian marooned on Hiva-oa from a schooner be-
cause of a broken leg, wished to pass the tedium of his
exile in an innocent game of cards,

"I desire a mere permission to buy two packs of cards
at the Chinaman's," he begged. "I would teach my
neighbors here the jeu de pokaree. I have learned it on
a voyage to San Francisco/ It is Americaine. It is
like life, not altogether luck. One must think well to
play it. I doubt not that you know that game."

Now gambling is forbidden in these isles. It is told
that throughout the southern oceans such a madness
possessed the people to play the white men's games of
chance that in order to prevent constant bloodshed in
quarrels a strict interdiction was made by the conquer-
ors. Of course whites here are always exeepted from
such sin-stopping rules, and merchants keep a small
stock of cards for their indulgence.

"But why two packs ?" I asked the agitated Tahitian.

"Mais, Monsieur, that is the way I was taught. We
played with ten or fourteen in the circle, and as it is
merely pour passer le temps, more of my poor brother
Kanakas can enjoy it with two packs."

He was positively abased, for no Tahitian says "Kan-
aka" of himself. It is a term of contempt. He might
call his fellow so, but only as an American negro says
"nigger."

I looked at him closely. Some gesture, the suggested
slant of his brows, the thin lips, reminded me of a cer-
tain "son of Ah Cum" who guided me into disaster in
Canton, saying, "Mis'r Rud Kippeling he go one time
befoV

WHITE SHADOWS

"Your name?" I asked in hope of confirmation.

"O Lalala," he replied, while the smile that started in
his eyes was killed by his tightening lips. "I am
French, for my grandfather was of Annam under the
tri-color, and my mother of Tahiti-iti."

Now fourteen-handed poker, with O Lalala as in-
structor to those ignorant of the game, the code of which
was written by a United States diplomat, appealed to
me as more than a passing of the time. It would be an
episode in the valley. My patriotism was stimulated*
I called the governor aside.

"This poker," I said, "is not like ecarte or baccarat.
It is a study of character, a matching of minds, a thing
we call bluff, we Americans. These poor Marquesans
must have some fun. Let him do it! No harm can
come of it. It is far to Paris, where the kws are made."

The governor turned to O Lalala.

"No stakes!" he said.

"Mais, non! Not a sour the lame man promised.
"We will use only matches for counters. Merd, merci,
Monsieur I'Admirdstrateurl You are very good*
Please, will you give me now the note to Ah You?"

As he limped away with it, the governor poured me
an inch of absinthe.

"Sapristir he exclaimed. "O Lalala ! O, la, la, la !"
He burst into laughter. "He will play ze bloff ?"

I spent that evening with Kriech, the German trader
of Taka-Uka. Over our Hellaby beef and Munich
beer we talked of copra and the beautiful girls of Buda-
Pesth, of the contemplated effort of the French govern-
ment to monopolize the island trade by subsidizing a
corporation, and of the incident of the afternoon.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 248

"The Herr Doktor is new/' said >Krieeh, with a wag
of his head. "That O Lalala! I have heard that that
poker iss very dansherous. That Prince Hanoi of
Papeite lose his tarn headt to a Chinaman. Something
comes of this foolishnesses I"

At midnight I had again gained the House of the
Golden Bed and had lain down to sleep when on the
breeze from up the valley there came a strangely famil-
iar sound to my upper ear. I sat up, listening. In the
dark silence, with no wind to rustle the breadfruit and
cocoanut-trees, and only the brook faintly murmuring
below, I heard a low babble of voices. No word was
distinguishable, not even the language, yet curiously
the sound had a rhythm that I knew.

I have heard from a distance preaching in many lan-
guages. Though only the cadences, the pauses, and
rhythm reached me, I had no difficulty in knowing their
origin and meaning. Thought casts the mold of all
speech. Now my drowsy mind harked back to Ameri-
can days, to scenes in homes and clubs.

I rose, and wrapping the loin-cloth about me, set out
with a lantern in search of that sound. It led me down
the trail, across the brook, and up the slope into the
dense green growth of the mountain-side. Beyond I
saw lights in the cocoanut-grove of Lam Kai Oo.

My bare feet made no noise, and through the under-
growth I peered upon as odd a sight as ever pleased a
lover of the bizarre. A blaze of torches lighted a cleared
space among the tall palm columns, and in the flickering
red glow a score of naked, tattooed figures crouched
about a shining mat of sugar-cane. About them great
piles of yellow-boxed Swedish matches caught the light,

244 WHITE SHADOWS

and on the cane mat shone the red and white and black
of the cards.

Lalala sat facing me, absorbed in the game. At
his back the yellow boxes were piled high, his crutch
propped against them, and continually he speeded the
play by calling out, "Passy, calley or makum bigger!"
"Comely center!" or, "Ante uppy!"

These were the sounds that had swept my memory
back to civilization and drawn me from my Golden Bed.
O Lalala had all the slang of poker the poker of the
waterfronts of San Francisco and of Shanghai and
evidently he had already taught his eager pupils that
patois.

They crouched about the mat, bent forward in their
eagerness, and the flickering light caught twisting
mouths and eyes ringed with tattooing. Over their
heads the torches flared, held by breathless onlookers.
The candlenuts, threaded on long spines of cocoanut-
leaves, blazed only a few seconds, but each dying one
lit the one beneath as it sputtered out, and the scores of
strings shed a continuous though wavering light upon
the shining mat and the cards.

The midnight darkness of the enclosing grove and
the vague columns of the palms, upholding the rustling
canopy that hid the sky, hinted at some monstrous cathe-
dral where heathen rites were celebrated.

1 pushed through the fringe of onlookers, none of
whom heeded me, and found Apporo and Exploding

Eggs holding torches. The madness of play was upon
them. The sad placidity of every day was gone; as in
the throes of the dance they kept their gleaming eyes
upon the fluctuations of fortune before them. Twice I

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 245

spoke sharply before they heard me, and then in a
frenzy of supplication Apporo threw herself upon me.

Would I not give her matches the packets of
matches that were under the Golden Bed? She and her
husband, Great Fern, had spent but an hour in the
magic circle ere they were denuded of their every match-
Couriers were even now scouring the valley for more
matches. Quick, hasten! Even now it might be that
the packets under the Golden Bed were gone!

"Surely, then, come/ 3 I said, struck by an incredible
possibility. Could it be that the crafty Lalala ab-
surd! But Apporo, hurrying before me down the lan-
tern-lighted trail, confirmed my suspicions.

Lalala had stated and put into effect the prohibi-
tion of any other stakes other than the innocent matches
mere counters which he had mentioned to the gov-
ernor. But swift messengers had heralded throughout
the valley that there would be gambling authorized par
gouvernement in Lam Kai Go's plantation, and al-
ready the cards had been shuffled for seven or eight
hours. Throughout all Atuona matches had been given
an extraordinary and superlative value. To the far-
thest huts on the rim of the valley the cry was
"Matches !" And as fast as they arrived, O Lalala won
them.

We hastened into my cabin, and Apporo was beneath
the Golden Bed ere the rays of my lantern fell upon the
floor. The packets had disappeared.

"Exploding Eggs!" cried Apporo, her dark eyes
rolling in rage.

"But he is honest," I objected.

In such a crisis, she muttered, all standards were

WHITE SHADOWS

naught Exploding Eggs had been one of the first
squatters at the sugar-cane mat. "The Bishop himself
would trade the holy-water fonts for matches, were he as
thirsty to play as I am!"

There were no more matches in the valleys of Atuona
or Taka-Uka, she said. Every dealer had sold out.
Every house had been invaded. The losers had begged,
borrowed, or given articles of great value for matches.
The accursed Tahitian had them all but a few now being
waged. Defeated players were even now racing over
the mountains in the darkness, ransacking each hut for
more.

The reputation of Hiva-oa, of the island itself, was
at stake* A foreigner had dishonored their people, or
would if they did not win back what he had gained from
them. She was half Chinese; her father's soul was
concerned. He had died in this very room. To save
his face in death she would give back even her interest
in the Golden Bed, she would pledge all that Great
Fern possessed, if I would give her only a few matches.

Her pleas could only be hopeless. There was not a
match in the cabin.

Together we returned to the cocoanut-grove. O La-
lala still sat calmly winning the matches, the supply of
which was from time to time replenished by panting
new-comers. He swept the mat clean at every valuable
pot.

His only apparent advantage was that he made the
rules whenever questions arose. He was patient in all
disputes, yielding in small matters, but he was as the
granite rocks of the mountain above him when many
matches were at stake. With solemnity he invoked the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 247

name of Hoy-lee, the mysterious person who had fixed
immutably the tapus of pokaree. He made an occult
sign with his thumb against his nose, and that settled it.
If any one persisted in challenging this tiki he added his
other thumb to the little finger of his first symbol, and
said, "Got-am-to-hellee!" As a last recourse, he would
raise his crutch and with public opinion supporting him
would threaten to invoke the law against gambling and
stop the game if disputation did not cease*

^Steadily the pile of Swedish tcendstikkers grew behind
him. All through the night the game raged beneath
the light of the candlenuts, in a silence broken only by
the hoarse breathing of the crouching brown men, the
sandy-sounding rustle of the palm-fronds overhead, and
cries of "Ante uppy!" or "Comely center!" When
dawn came grayly through the aisles of the grove, they
halted briefly to eat a bowl of popoi and to drink the
milk of freshly gathered nuts. Lalala, relaxing
against the heap of his winnings, lifted a shell to his lips
and over its rim gave me one enigmatic look.

Whistling softly, I went down to the House of the
Golden Bed, breakfasted there without the aid of Ex-
ploding Eggs, and then sought the governor. He had
gone by the whale-boat of Special Agent Bauda to an
adjoining deserted island to shoot kuku, Hiva-oa was
without a government.

All day the madness raged in the cocoanut-grove.
In the afternoon the vicar apostolic of the Roman
Catholic Church, supported by the faithful Deacon
Fariuu 5 himself toiled up the slope to stop the game.
The bishop was received in sullen silence by regular
communicants. A cateehist whom he had f ound squat

248 WHITE SHADOWS

before the mat paid no attention to his objurgations,
save to ask the bishop not to stand behind him, as
Lalala had said that was bad luck. The churchmen re-
tired in a haughty silence that was unheeded by the ab-
sorbed players.

Later the deacon returned, bringing with him the very
matches that had been kept in the church to light toe
lamps at night service. These he stacked on the sugar-
cane mat. The vicar bishop followed him to call down
the anathema maranatha of high heaven upon this rene-
gade who had robbed the cathedral and the priests' house
of every tcendstikker they had held, and when he had
again retired, the deacon, dropping his last box on the
woven table, elevated his hands toward the skies and
fervently asked the Giver of All Good Things to aid his
draw. But he received a third ace, only to see O Lalala
put down four of the damnable bits of paper with three
spots on each one.

At three o'clock next morning the game lapsed be-
cause the Tahitian had all the counters. These he sent
to his house, where they were guarded by a friend. For
a day he sat waiting by the sugar-cane mat, and the
Monte Carlo was not deserted. O 'Lalala would not
budge to the demands of a hundred losers that he sell
back packages of matches for cocoanuts or French
francs or any other currency. Pigs, fish, canned goods,
and all the contents of the stores he spurned as breaking
faith with the kindly governor, who would recognize
that while matches were not gambling stakes, all other
commodities were.

On the fourth day the canoes that had jpaddled and
sailed to every other island of $*e ardhipelago began to

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 249

return. Some brought fifty packets, some less. Deal-
ers had tossed their prices sky-ward when asked to sell
their entire stocks.

Now the game began again with the fierceness of the
typhoon after the center has passed. Men and women
stood in line for the chance to redeem their fortunes, to
sit ce their rage, to gain applause. Once they thought
the/ had conquered the Tahitian, He began to lose,
and before his streak of trouble ended, he had sent more
than thirty packages from his hut to the grove* But
this was the merest breath of misfortune; his star rose
again, and the contents of the canoes were his.

On the fifth day it became known that the Shan-Shan
syndicate of Cantonese had a remaining case of tcend-
stikkers. They claimed that until now they had over-
looked this case. It held a hundred packages, or twelve
hundred boxes. It was priceless as the sole possible bar-
rier against the absolute ending of the game.

The Shan-Shan people were without heart. They
demanded for the case five francs a packet. Many of
the younger Marquesans counselled giving the Can-
tonese a taste of the ancient uu^ the war-club of a pre-
vious generation. Desperate as was the plight of the
older gamesters, they dared not consent. The governor
would return, the law would take its course, and they
would go to Noumea to work out their lives for crime.
No, they would buy the case for francs, but they would
not risk dividing it among many, who would be de-
voured piecemeal by the diabolical O Lalala,

"Kivi, the Vagabond, the Drinker of kava, is the chief
to lead our cause/* said Great Fern. "He has never
gone to the Christian church. He believes still in the

250 WHITE SHADOWS

old gods of the High Place, and he is tattooed with the
shark."

Kivi was the one man who had not played. He cared
nothing for the pleasures of the Farani, the foolish
whites. After palaver, his neighbors waited on him in a
body. They reasoned with him, they begged him. He
consented to their plan only after they had wept at
their humbling. Then they began to instruct him.

They told him of the different kinds of combinations,
of straights and of flushes, and of a certain occasional
period when the Tahitian would introduce a mad novelty
by which the cards with one fruit on them would
"runnee wil'ee." They warned him against times when
without reason the demon would put many matches on
the mat, and after frightening out every one would in
the end show that he had no cards of merit.

Immediately after sunset, when the popoi and fish
had been eaten, and all had bathed in the brook, when
the women had perfumed their bodies: and put the scar-
let hibiscus in their hair, and after Kivi had drunk thrice
of kava, the game began. The valley was deserted, the
paepaes empty, No fires twinkled from the mountain-
sides. Only in the cocoamit-grove the candienuts were
lit as the stars peeped through the roof of the world.

A throng surrounded the pair of combatants. The
worn cards had been oiled and dried, and though the
ominous faces of the tiki upon them shone bravely,
doubtless they were weary of strife. The pipe was
made to smoke; Kivi puffed it and so did all who had
joined in the purchase of the case from the thieves of
Cantonese. Then the cards were dealt by Kivi, who
had won the cut.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS U51

Lalala and he eyed each other like Japanese
wrestlers before the grille. Their eyes were slits as
they put up the ante of five packets each. O Lalala
opened the pot for five packets and Ivivi, nudged by his
backers, feverishly balanced them. He took three
cards, O Lalala but one. Standing behind the Tahitiari,
J saw that he had no cards of value, but coolly he threw
thirty packets upon the mat. The others shuddered,
for Kivi had drawn deuces to a pair of kings. They
made the pipe glow again. They puffed it; they spat;
they put their heads together, and he threw down his
cards.

Then calmly the Tahitian laid down his own, and they
saw that they could have beaten him. They shouted in
dismay, and withdrew Kivi, who after some palaver
went away with them into the darkness.

One or two candlenut torches dimly illumined the
figures of the squatting women who remained. Upon
the sugar-cane mat O Lalala stretched himself at ease,
closing his eyes. A silence broken only by the stealthy
noises of the forest closed upon us. Teata, her dark
eyes wide, looked fearfully over her shoulder and crept
close to me. In a low voice she said that the absent
players had thrown earth over their shoulders, stamped,
and called upon Po, the Marquesan deity of darkness,
yet it had not availed them. ^iTow they went to make
magic to those at whose very mention she shuddered, not
naming them.

We waited, while tlie torches sputtered lower, and a
dank breath of the forest crept between the trees. O
Lalala appeared to sleep, though when Apporo at-
tempted to withdraw a card he pinned it with his crutch.

j5 WHITE SHADOWS

It was half an hour before the players returned.
crouched to his place without a word, and the other;
arranged themselves behind him in fixed array, ai
though they had a cabalistic number-formation ii
mind.

Fresh torches were made, and many disputed the
privilege of holding them, as they controlled one's vie^
of the mat. O Lalala sat imperturbable, waiting. At
last all was ready. The light fell upon the giant limbs
and huge torsos of the men, picking out arabesques of
tattooing and catching ruddy gleams from red pareus.
The women, in crimson gowns caught up to the waist,
their luxuriant hair adorned with flowers and phos-
phorescent fungus, their necks hung with the pink
peppers of Chile, squatted in a close ring about the
players.

The lame man took up the pack, shuffled it, and
handed it to Kivi to cut. Then Kivi solemnly stacked
before him the eighty-five packets of matches, all that
remained in the islands. Five packs went upon the mat
for ante, and Kivi very slowly picked up his cards.

He surveyed them, and a grim smile of incredulity
and delight spread over his ink-decorated countenance.
He opened for ten packets. O Lalala quickly put down
as many, and thirty more.

Kivi chuckled as one who has his enemy in his hand,
but stifles his feelings to hide his triumph. He then
carefully counted his remaining wealth, and with a
gesture of invitation slid the entire seventy packets
about his knees. They were a great bulk, quite 840
boxes of matches, and they almost obscured the curving
palms of blue tattooed on his mighty thighs.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 257

Again he chuckled and this time put his knuckling at
his mouth. "Tatty!" said Great Fern for him/ him
made a gesture disdaining more cards* >.

O Lalala scrutinized his face as the sailor the heavens
in a storm, and then studied the visages of all his backers.
He closed his eyes a moment. Then, "My cally!' he
said, as he pushed a great heap of tcendstikkers onto the
cane mat. The fca#a-drinkers grew black with excite-
ment.

Kivi hesitated, and then, amid the most frightful
curses of Ms company, laid down only a pair of kings, a
six, a nine, and a jack. O Lalala, without a smile, dis-
closed a pair of aces and three meaningless companions*

The game was over. The men of Hiva-oa had
thrown their last spear. Magic had been unavailing;
the demon foreigner could read through the cards.
Kivi f eJl back helpless, grief and kava prostrating him.
The torches died down as the winner picked up his spoils
and prepared to retire.

At this moment a man dashed madly through the
grove, displaying two boxes and a handful of separate
matches. O Lalala at first refused to play for this
trifling stake, but in a storm of menacing cries consented
to cut the pack for double or nothing, and in a twinkling
extinguished the last hope.

The last comer had looted the governor's palace.
The ultimate match in the Marquesas had been lost to
the Tahitian. He now had the absolute monopoly of
light and of cooking.

Soberly the rest of the valley dwellers went home to
unlighted huts.

Next morning, after a cold breakfast, I was early

WHITE SHADOWS

the valley. On the way to the trader's store I
the complacent winner in his cabin* Through
%n/ open door I saw that every inch of the walls was cov-
ered with stacked boxes of matches, yellow fronts ex-
posed* On his mat in the middle of this golden treasury
O Lalala reclined, smoking at his leisure, and smiling
the happy smile of Midas. Outside a cold wind swept
down from Calvary Peak, and a gray sky hid the sun.

I paused in the reek of those innumerable matches,
which tainted the air a hundred feet away, and ex-
changed morning greetings with their owner, inquiring
about his plans. He said that he would make a three
days' vigil of thanks, and upon the fourth day he would
sell matches at a franc a small box. I bade him fare-
well, and passed on.

The valley people were coming and going about their
affairs, but sadly and even morosely. There was no
match to light the fire for roasting breadfruit, or to
kindle the solacing tobacco. O Lalala would not give
one away, or sell one at any price* Neither would he
let a light be taken from his own fire or pipe.

The next schooner was not expected for two months,
as the last was but a fortnight gone. Le Brunnec had
not a match, nor Kriech. The governor had not re-
turned. The only alternatives were to go lightless and
smokeless or to assault the heartless oppressor. Many
dark threats were muttered on the cheerless paepaes and
in the dark huts, but in variety of councils there was no
unity, and none dared assault alone the yellow-walled
hut in which O Lalala smiled among his gains.

On the second day there was a growing tension in the

THE SOUTH SEAS 257

atmosphere of the valley, I observed that thei^ing at
no young men to be seen on the beach or at the tig him
stores. There were rumors, hints hardly spoken, u.
meeting in the hills. The traders looked to their guns,
whistling thoughtfully. There was not a spark of fire
set in all Atuona, save by O Lalala, and that for him-
self alone.

So matters stood until the second night. Then old
Kahuiti, that handsomest of cannibals, who lived in the
valley of Taaoa, strolled into Atuona and made it
known that he would hold a meeting in the High Place
where of old many of his tribe had been eaten by Atuona
men.

Exploding Eggs, Malicious Gossip, and I climbed
the mountain early. The population of the valley,
eager for counsel, was gathered on the old stone benches
where half a century earlier their sorcerers had sat. In
the twilight Kahuiti stood before us, his long white beard
tied in a Psyche knot on Ms broad, tattooed chest. His
voice was stern.

We were fools, he said, to be denied food and smoke
by the foreigner. What of matches before the French
came? Had he known matches in his youth? Auc!
The peoples of the islands must return to the ways of
their fathers I

He leaped from the top of the Pekia, and seizing his
long knife, he cut a five-foot piece of parm-wood and
shaped it to four inches in width. With our fascinated
gaze upon him, he whittled sharp a foot-long piece of
the same woo^, and straddled the longer stick. Hold-
ing it firmly between his two bare knees he rubbed the

32 WHITE SHADOWS

It W*- pointed piece swiftly up and down a space of
! upon his mount. Gradually a groove formed,
the dust collected at one end.

Soon the wood was smoking hot, and then the old
man's hands moved so rapidly that for several moments
I could not follow them with the eye. The smoke be-
came thicker, and suddenly a gleam of flame arose,
caught the dust, and was fed with twigs and cocoanut-
husks by scores of trembling brown hands. In a few
minutes a roaring fire was blazing on the sward.

Pipes sprang from loin-cloths or from behind ears,
and the incense of tobacco lifted on the still air of the
evening. Brands were improvised and hurried home to
light the fires for breadfruit-roasting, while Kahuiti
laughed scornfully.

"A hundred of this tribe I have eaten, and no won-
der!" he said as he strode away toward Taaoa.

The monopoly of O Lalala was no more. Atuona
Valley had turned back the clock of time a hundred
years, to destroy the perfect world in which he sat alone.
He heard the news with amazement and consternation.
For a day he sat disconsolate, unable to credit the dis-
aster that had befallen his carefully made plans. Then
he offered the matches at usual traders 3 prices, and the
people mocked him. All over the island the fire-
ploughs, oldest of fire-making tools in the world, were
being driven to heat the stones for the mei. Atuona
had no need of matches.

The governor on his return heard the roars of derision,
gathered the story from a score of mirthful tongues,
seized and sold the matches, and appropriated the funds
for a barrel of Bordeaux. And for many weeks the un-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 257

sappy O Lalala sat mournfully on the beach, gating at
the empty sea and longing for a schooner to carry him

away.

CHAPTER XXIII

Mademoiselle N .

THE Jeanne dfArc, a beautiful, long, curving
craft manned by twelve oarsmen, came like a
white bird over the blue waters of the Bay of
Traitors one Saturday afternoon, bringing Pere Vic-
torien to Atuona. He was from H-atiheu, on the island
of Nuka-hiva, seventy miles to the north. A day and a
night he had spent on the open sea, making a slow voy-
age by wind and oar, but like all these priests he made
nothing of the hardships. They come to the islands to
stay until they die, and death means a crown the brighter
for martyrdom.

He looked a tortured man in his heavy and smother-
ing vestments when I met him before the mission walls
next morning. His face and hands were covered with
pustules as if from smallpox.

"The nonos (sand-flies) are so furious the last
month," he said with a patient smile. "I have not slept
but an hour at a time. I was afraid I would go mad."

News of his coming brought all the valley Catholics to
eight o'clock mass. The banana-shaded road and the
roots of the old banian were crowded with worshippers
in all their finery, and when they poured into the mis-
sion the few rude benches were well filled.' I found a
chair in the rear, next to that of Baufre, the shaggy
drunkard, and as the chanting began, I observed an

258

IN THE SOUTH SEAS *>

empty prie-dieUj specially prepared and placed for some
person of importance.

"Mademoiselle X " said Baufre, nct:c;r;j the di-
rection of my glance. "She is the richest woman in all
the Marquesas."

At the Gospel she came in, walking slowly down the
aisle and taking her place as though unaware of th j
hundred covert glances that followed her. Wealth is

comparative, and Mademoiselle X , with perhaps a,

few hundred thousand dollars in cash and cocoanut-
grove, stood to the island people as Rockefeller to us.
Money and lands were not all her ^v,~e^:~r>'. for
though she had never traveled from her bii'ihpJec-e, fchc
was very different in carriage and costume from the
girls about her.

She wore a black lace gown, clinging, and becoming
her slender figure and delicately charming face. Her
features were exquisite, her eyes lustrous black pools of
passion, her mouth a scarlet line of pride and disdain.
A large leghorn hat of fine black straw, with chiffon,
was on her graceful head, and her tiny feet were in silk
stockings and patent leather. She held a gold and
ivory prayer-book in gloved hands, and a jeweled watch
hung upon her breast.

She might have passed for a Creole or for one of those
beautiful Filipino mestizos* daughters of Spanish
fathers and Filipino mothers. I suppose coquetry m
woman was born with the fig-leaf. This dainty, fetch-
ing heiress, born of a French father and a savage
mother, had all the airs and graces of a ballroom belle.
Where had she gained these fashions and desires of the
women of cities, of Europe?

260 WHITE SHADOWS

I hau but to look over the church to feel her loneliness.
Teato,, Many Daughters, Weaver of Mats, and Flower,
savagely handsome, gaudily dressed, were the only com-
panions of her own age. Flower, of the red-gold hair,
was striking in a scarlet gown of sateen, a wreath of
pink peppers, and a necklace of brass. She had been
ornamented by the oarsmen of the Jeanne d'Arc^ for-
tunately without Pexe Victorien's knowledge. Teata,
in her tight gown with its insertions of fishnet revealing
her smooth, tawny skin, a red scarf about her waist,
straw hat trimmed with a bright blue Chinese shawl
perched on her high-piled hair, was still a picture of
primitive and savage grace. They were handsome,

these girls, but they were wild flowers. Mile. N"

had the poise and delicacy of the hothouse blossom.

Her father had spent thirty years on Hiva-oa, labor-
ing to wring a fortune from the toil of the natives, and
dying, he had left it all to this daughter, who, with her
laces and jewels, her elegant, slim form and haughty
manner, was in this wild abode of barefooted, half -naked
people like a pearl in a gutter. She was free now to do
what she liked with herself and her fortune. What
would she do?

It was the question on every tongue and in every eye
when, after mass, she passed down the lane respectfully
widened for her in the throng on the steps and with a
black-garbed sister at her side, walked to the nuns'
house.

"If only she had a religious vocation/ 5 sighed Sister
Serapoline. "That would solve all difficulties, and save
her soul and happiness."

Vainly the nuns and priests had tried during the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 261

dozen years of her tutelage in their hands to direct her
aspirations toward this goal, but one had only to look
into her biirning eyes or see the supple movement of her
body, to know that she sought her joy on earth.

Liha-Liha, the natives called her father, which means
corporal, and that they had hated and yet feared him
vhen Hiva-oa was still given over to cannibalism out-
lined his character. He had lived and died in his house
near the Stinking Springs on the road to Taaoa. The
sole white man in that valley, he had lorded it over the
natives more sternly than had their old chiefs. He had
fought down the wilderness, planted great cocoanut-
plantations, forced the unwilling islanders to work for
him, and dollar by dollar, with an iron will, he had
wrung from their labor the fortune now left in the
dainty hands of his half-savage daughter.

Song of the Nightingale, the convict cook of the gov-
ernor, gave me light on the man*

"I loved his woman, Piiheana (Climber of Trees Who
Was Killed and Eaten) , who was the mother of Made-
moiselle N ," said Song of the Nightingale. "One

night he found me with her on his paepae. He shot
me; then he had me condemned as a robber, and I spent
five years in the prison at Tai-o-hae."

"And Climber of Trees Who Was Killed and
Eaten?"

"He beat her till her bones were broken, and sent her
from him. Then he took Daughter of a Piece of Tat-
tooing, to whom he left in his will thirty-five thousand
francs. It was she who brought up Mademoiselle."

Mademoiselle herself walked daintily down to the
road, where her horse was tied, and I was presented to

26? WHITE SHADOWS

her. She gave me her hand with the air of a princess,
her scarlet lips rur-r^r into a faint smile and her
smouldering, unsatisfied eyes sweeping my face. With
a conciliating, yet imperious, air, she suggested that I
ride over the hills with her.

Picking up her lace skirt and frilled petticoat, she
vaulted into the man's saddle without more ado, and
took the heavy reins in her small gloved hands. Her
horse was scrubby, but she rode well, as do all Mar-
quesans, her supple body follcvr'n^; his least movement
and her slim, silk-stockinged legs clinging as though
she were riding bareback. When the swollen river
threatened to wet her varnished slippers, she perched
herself on the saddle, feet and all, and made a dry ford.

Over the hills she led the way at a gallop, despite
wretched trail and tripping bushes. Down we went
through the jungle, walled in by a hundred kinds of
trees and ferns and vines. fow and then we came into
a cleared space, a native plantation, a hut surrounded
by breadfruit-, mango- and cocoanut-, orange- and
lime-trees. No one called "Kaolio!" and Mademoiselle

N did not slacken her pace. We swept into the

jungle again without a word, my horse following her
mount's flying feet, and I ducking and dodging branches
and noose-like vines.

In a marshy place, where patches of taro spread its
magnificent leaves over the earth, we slowed to a walk.
The jungle tangle was all about us; a thousand bright
flowers, scarlet, yellow, purple, crimson, splashed with
color the masses of green; tall ferns uncurled their
fronds; giant creepers coiled like snakes through the
boughs, and the sluggish air was heavy with innumera-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 263

ble delicious scents. I said to Mile. N thai the

beauty of the islands was like that of a fantastic dream ;
an Arabian Night's tale.

"Yes?" she said, with a note of weariness and irony.
The feet of the horses made a suekirg sound on the oozy
ground. "I am half white/' she said after a moment,
and as the horses' hoofs struck the rocky trail again,
she whipped up her mount and we galloped up the
slope.

After a time the trail widened into a road and I saw
before us a queer enclosure. At first sight I frivrh-
it a wild-animal park. There were small houses like
cages and a big, box-like structure in the center, all
enclosed in a wire fence, a couple of acres in all. Draw-
ing nearer, I saw that the houses were cabins painted
in gaudy colors, and that the white box was a marble
tomb of great size. Each slab of marble was rimmed
with scarlet cement, and the top of the tomb, under a
corrugated iron roof, was covered with those abominable
bead-wreaths from Paris.

Like the humbler Marquesans who have their coffins
made and graves dug before their passing, Mademoiselle

N 9 s father had seen to it that this last resting-pkce

was prepared while he lived, and he had placed it here
in the center of his plantation, before the house that
had been his home for thirty years* With something
of his own crude strength and barbaric taste, it stood
there, the grim reminder of her white father to the girl
in whose veins his own blood mingled with that of the
savage.

She looked at it without emotion, and after I had
surveyed it, we dismounted and she led me into her

264 WHITE SHADOWS

house. It was a neat and showily-furnished cottage,
whose Xottingham-lace curtains, varnished golden-oak
chairs and ingrain carpet spoke of attempts at mail-
order beautification. Sitting on a horse-hair sofa, hard
and slippery, I drank wine and ate mangoes, while op-
posite me Mile. N 5 s mother sat in stiff misery on

a chair. She was a withered Marquesan woman, bare-
footed and ugly, dressed in a red cotton garment of
the hideous night-gown pattern introduced by the mis-
sionaries, and her eyes were tragedies of bewilderment
and suffering, while her toothless mouth essayed a smile
and she struggled with a few words of bad French.

Though Mile. N was most hospitable, she was

not at ease, and I knew it was because of the appear-
ance of her mother, this woman whom her father had
discarded years before, but to whom the daughter had
shown kindness since his death. The mother appeared
more at ease with her successor, a somewhat younger
Marquesan woman, who waited on us as a servant, and
seemed contented enough. Doubtless the two who had
endured the moods of Liha-Liha had many confidences
now that he was gone.

I had to describe America to Mile. N , and the

inventions and social customs of which she had read.
She would not want to live in such a big country, she
said, but Tahiti seemed to combine comfort with the
atmosphere of her birthplace. Perhaps she might go
to Tahiti to live.

As I took my hat to leave, she said:

"I have been told that they are separating the lepers
in Tahiti and confining them outside Papeite in a kind
of prison. Is that so?"

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 265

"Not a prison," I replied. "The government has
built cottages for them in a little valley. Don't you
think it wise to segregate them?"

She did not reply, and I rode away.

A week later I met her one evening at Otnpoto. that
dividing place between the valleys of Taaoa and Atuona,
where Kahuiti and his fellow warriors had trapped the
human meat. I had walked there to sit on the edge
of the precipice and watch the sun set in the sea. She
came on horseback from her home toward the village,
to spend Sunday with the nuns. She got off her horse
when she saw me, and lit a cigarette.

"What do you do here all alone?" she asked in French.
She never used a word of Marquesan to me. I replied
that I was trying to imagine myself there fifty years
earlier, when the meddlesome white sang very low in
the concert of the island powers.

"The people were happier then, I suppose," she said
meditatively, as she handed me her burning cigarette
in the courteous way of her mother's people. "But
it does not attract me. I would like to see the world
I read of."

She sat beside me on the rock, her delicately-modeled
chin on her pink palm, and gazed at the colors fading
from vivid gold and rose to yellow and mauve on the
sky and the sea. The quietness of the scene, the gather-
ing twilight, perhaps, too, something in the fact that I
was a white man and a stranger, broke down her reserve.

"But with whom can I see that world?" she said with
sudden passion. "Money I have it. I don't want it.
I want to be loved. I want a man. What shall I
do? I cannot marry a native, for they do not think

WHITE SHADOWS

as I do. I I dread to marry a Frenchman. You
know le droit du mari? A French wife has no free-
dom."

I cited Madame Bapp, who chastised her spouse.

"He is no man, that criquetf she said scornfully.

"I would he better off not to marry, if I had a real
man who loved me, and who would take me across the
sea ! What am I saying? The nuns would be shocked.
I do not know oh, I do not know what it is that tears
at me! But I want to see the world, and I want a
man to love me/ 5

"Your islands here are more beautiful than any of
the developed countries," I said. "There are many
thieves there, too, to take your money/'

"I have read that," she answered, "and I am not
afraid. I am afraid of nothing. I want to know a
different life than here. I will at least go to Tahiti.
I am tired of the convent. The nuns talk always of
religion, and I am young, and I am half French. We
die young, most of us, and I have had no pleasure."

I saw her black eyes, as she puffed her cigarette,
shining with her vision. Some man would put tears
in them soon, I thought, if she chose that path.

Would she be happy in Tahiti? If she could find
one of her own kind, a half-caste, a paragon of kindness
and fidelity, she might be. With the white she would
know only torture. There is but one American that
I know who has made a native girl happy. Lovina,
who keeps the Tiare Hotel in Papeite and who knows
the gossip of all the South Seas, told me the story one
day after he had come to the hotel to fetch two dinners

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 267

to Ms home. He had a handsome motor-car, and the
man himself was so clean-looking, so precise in every
word and motion, that I spoke of the contrast to the
skippers, officials, and tourists who lounged ahout
Lovina's bar.

"He is a strange one, that man," said Lovina. "Two
years ago I have nice girl here, wait on bar, look sweet,
and I make her jus' so my daughter. I go America
for visit, and when I come back that girl ruin'. That
American take her 'way, and he come tell me straight he
could n't help it. He jus' love her mad. He build
her fine house, get automobile* She never work.
Every day he come here get meals take home."

That tall, straight chap, his hair prematurely gray,
his face sad, had made the barmaid the jewel of a golden
setting. He devoted himself and his income solely to
her. Stranger still, he had made her his legal wife.

But she is an exception rare as rain in Aden. These
native girls of mixed blood, living tragedies sprung
from the uncaring selfishness of the whites, struggle
desperately to lift themselves above the mire in which
the native is sinking. They throw themselves away on
worthless adventurers, who waste their little patrimony,
break their hearts, and either desert them after the first
flush of passion passes, or themselves sink into a life
of lazy slovenliness worse than that of the native.

All these things I pondered when Mile. N spoke

of her hope of finding happiness in Tahiti. I was sure
that, with her wealth, she would have many suitors,
but what of a tender heart?

"It is love I want,'* she said. "Love and freedom*

2b8 WHITE SHADOWS

We women are used to having our own way. I know
the nuns would be horrified, but I shall bind myself to

no man. 5 '

The last colors of the sunset faded slowly on the sea,
and the world was a soft gray filled with the radiance

of the rising moon. I rose and when Mile, N had

mounted I strolled ahead of her horse in the moonlight.
I was wearing a tuberose over my ear, and she remarked
it.

"You know what that signifies? If a man seeks a
woman, he wears a white flower over his ear, and if his
love grows ardent, he wears a red rose or hibiscus. But
if he tires, he puts some green thing in their place.
Ban dieu,! That is the depth of ignominy for the
woman scorned. I remember one girl who was made
light of that way in church. She stayed a day hidden
in the hills weeping, and then she threw herself from
a cliff."

There was in her manner a melancholy and a longing.

"Tahitians wear flowers all the day," I said. "They
are gay, and life is pleasant upon their island. There
are automobiles by the score, cinemas, singing, and
dancing every evening, and many Europeans and
Americans. With money you could have everything."

"It is not singing and dancing I desire!" she ex-
claimed. "Pas de tout! I must know more people,
and not people like priests and these copra dealers. I
have read in novels of men who are like gods, who are
bold and strong, but who make their women happy.
Do you know an officer of the Zelee, with hair like a
ripe banana? He is tall and plays the banjo. I saw
him one time long ago when the warship was here. He

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 269

was on the governor's veranda. Oh, that was long ago,
but such a young man would be the man that I want."

Her Marquesan blood was speaking in that cry of
the heart, unrestrained and passionate. They are not
the cold, chaste women of other climes, these women of
the Marquesas; with blood at fever heat and hearts
beating like wild things against bars, they listen when
love or its counterfeit pours into their ears those soft
words with nothing in them that make a song. They
have no barriers of reserve or haughtiness; they make
no bargains; they go where the heart goes, careless of
certified vows.

fe Mon dieu!" Mile, N exclaimed and put her

tiny hand to her red lips. "What if the good sisters
heard me? I am bad. I know. Eh Hen! I am
Marquesan after all. 5 *

We were about to cross the stream by my cabin, and
I mounted the horse behind her to save a wetting. She
turned impulsively and looked at me, her lovely face
close to mine, her dark eyes burning, and her hot breath
on my cheek.

"Write to me when you are in Tahiti, and tell me if
you think I would be happy there?" she said implor-
ingly. "I have no friends here, except the nuns. I
need so much to go away. I am dying here."

Coining up my trail a few days later, I found on iny
paepae a shabbily dressed little bag-of -bones of a white
man, with a dirty gray beard and a harsh voice like
that of Baufre. He had a note to me from Le Brunnec,
introducing M. Lemoal, born in Brest, a naturalized
American. The note was sealed, and I put it care-
fully away before turning to my visitor. It read:

270 WHITE SHADOWS

CITOYEN:

"I send you a specimen of the Marquesan beaches,
so that you can have a little fun. This fellow have
a very tremendous life. He is an old sailor, pirate,
gold-miner, Chinese-hanger, thief, robber, honest-man,
baker, trader; in a word, an interesting type. With
the aid of several glasses of wine I have put him in
the mood to talk delightfully/'

A low-browed man was Lemoal, sapped and ruth-
less, but certainly he had adventured.

Was the Bella Union Theater still there in Frisco?
Did they still fight in Bottle Meyers, and was his friend
Tasset on the police force yet? His memories of San
Francisco ante-dated mine. He had been a hoodlum
there, and had helped to hang Chinese. He had gone
to Tahiti in 1870 and made a hundred thousand francs
keeping a bakery. That fortune had lasted him dur-
ing two years' tour of the world.

"ISTow I 'm bust," he said bitterly. "Now I got no
woman, no children, no friends, and I don't want none.
I arn by myself and damn everybody!"

I soothed his misanthropy with two fingers of rum,
and he mellowed into advice.

"I saw you with that daughter of Liha-Liha," he
said, using the native name of the dead millionaire.
"You be careful. One time I baked bread in Taaoa.
My oven was near his plantation. I saw that girl come
into the woods and take off her dress. She had a mirror
to see her back, and I looked, and the sun shone bright.
What she saw, I saw a patch of white. She is a leper,
that rich girl."

His eyes were full of hate.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 271

"You don't like her," I said. "Why?"

"Why? Why?" he screamed. "Because her father
was an accursed villian. He was always kissing the
dirty hands of the priests. * He used to give his work-
men opium to make them work faster, and then he
would go to church. He made his money, yes. He
was damn hypocrite. And now his daughter, with all
that rotten money, is a leper. I tell everybody what
I saw. Everybody here knows it but you. Everybody
will know it in Tahiti if she goes there."

The man was like a snake to me. I threw away the
glass he had drunk from. And yet was it idle curi-
osity^ or was it fear of being shut away in the valley
outside Papeite by the quarantine officers, that made
her ask me that question about the segregation of
lepers?

Liha-Liha had spent thirty years making money.
He had coined the sweat and blood and lives of a thou-
sand Marquesans into a golden fortune, and he had
left behind him that fortune, a marble tomb, and Mile

\r

CHAPTER XXIV

A journey to Nuka-hiva; story of the celebration of the fte of Joan of
Arc, and the miracles of the white horse and the girL

PERE VICTORIEN said that I must not leave
the Marquesas before I visited the island of
Nuka-hiva seventy miles to the northward and
saw there in Tai-o-hae, the capital of the northern group
of islands, a real saint.

"A wonderful servant of Christ, 7 ' he said, "Pere
Simeon Delmas. He is very old, and has been there
since the days of strife- He has not been away from
the islands for fifty years, but God preserves him for
His honor and service. Pere Simeon would be one of
the first in our order were he in Europe, but he is a
martyr and wishes to earn his crown in these islands
and die among his charges. He is a saint, as truly
as the blessed ones of old.

"It was he who planned the magnificent celebration
of the feast of Joan of Arc some years ago, and as to
miracles, I truly believe that the keeping safe of the
white horse during the terrible storm and perhaps even
the preservation of a maiden worthy to appear in the
armor of the Maid, are miracles as veritable as the ap-
parition at Lourdes. Pour moi, I am convinced that
Joan is one of the most ,glorious saints in heaven, and
that Pere Simeon himself is of the band of blessed
martyrs."

"Ah, Pere Victorien, I would like nothing better than

*

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 273

to meet that good man/' I said, "but I am at a loss to
get to Tai-o-hae. The Roberta, Capriata's steamer,
will not be here for many weeks, and there is no other
in the archipelago just now."

"You shall return with me in the Jeanne d'Arc" he
replied quickly. "It may be an arduous voyage for
you, but you will be well repaid."

A fortnight later his steersman came running to my
cabin to tell me to be ready at one o'clock in the morn-
ing.

The night was a myriad of stars on a vast ebon
canopy. One could see only shadows in denser shad-
ows, and the serene sure movements of the men as they
lifted the whale-boat from Bauda's shed and carried
it lightly to the water were mysterious to me. Their
eyes saw where mine were blind. Pere Victorian and
I were seated in the boat, and they shoved off, breast-
deep in the turmoil of the breakers, running alongside
the bobbing craft until it was in the welter of foam
and, then with a chorus, in unison, lifting themselves
over the sides and seizing the oars before the boat could
turn broadside to the shore,

"He-ee Nuka-hiva!" they sang in a soft monotone,
while they pulled hard for the mouth of the bay. The
priest and I were fairly comfortable in the stern, the
steersman perched behind us on the very edge of the
combing, balancing himself to the rise and fall of the
boat as an acrobat on a rope* I laid my head on my
bag and fell asleep before the sea had been reached.
The last sound in my ears was the voice of Pere Vic-
torien reciting his rosary.

I awoke to find a breeze careening our sail and the

WHITE SHADOWS

Jeanne d'Arc rushing through a pale blue world pale
blue water, pale blue sky, and, it seemed, pale blue air,
No single solid thing but the boat was to be seen in
the indefinite immensity* Sprawling on its bottom in
every attitude of limp relaxation, the oarsmen lay
asleep; only Pere Victorien was awake, his hands on
the tiller and his eyes gazing toward the east.

"Bonjourf* said he. "You have slept well iSTour
angel guardian thinks well of you. The dawn comes."

I asked him if I might relieve him of tiller and sheet,
and he, with an injunction to keep the sail full and far,
unpocketed his breviary, and was instantly absorbed in
its contents.

Our tack was toward the eastern distance, and no
glimpse of land or cloud made us aught but solitary
travelers in illimitable space. The sun was beneath the
deep, but in the hush of the pale light one felt the awe
of its coming. Slowly a faint glow began to gild a line
that circled the farthest east. Gold it was at first, like
a segment of a marriage ring, then a bolt of copper shot
from the level waters to the zenith and a thousand vivid
colors were emptied upon the sky and the sea. Roses
were strewn on the glowing waste, rose and gold and
purple curtained the horizon, and suddenly, without
warning, abrupt as lightning, the sun beamed hot above
the edge of the world.

The Marquesans stirred, their bodies stretched and
their lungs expanded in the throes of returning con-
sciousness. Then one sat up and called loudly, fe A
titdhi a atu! Another day!" The others rose, and im-
mediately began to uncover the popoi bowl. They had
canned fish and bread, too, and ate steadily, without a

IX THE SOUTH SEAS 275

worcl, for ten minutes. The steersman, who had joined
them, returned to the helm, and the priest and I en-
joyed the bananas and canned beef with water from the
jug, and cigarettes.

All day the Jeanne d'Arc held steadily on the several
tacks we steered, and all day no living thing but bird
or fish disturbed the loneliness of the great empty sea.
Pere Yictorien read his breviary or told his beads in
abstracted contemplation, and I, lying on the bottom of
the boat with my hat shielding my eyes from the beat-
ing rays of the sun, pondered on what I knew of Tai-
o-hae, the port on the island of Nuka-hiva, to which
we were bound.

For two hundred years after the discovery of the
southern group the islands we had left behind us the
northern group was still unknown to the world. Cap-
tain Ingraham, of Boston, found Xuka-hiva in 1791,
and called the seven small islets the Washington
Islands. Twenty years later, during the war of 1812,
Porter refitted Ms ships there to prey upon the British,
and but for the perfidy, or, from another view, the
patriotism, of an Englishman in his command, Porter
might have succeeded in making the Marquesas Amer-
ican possessions.

Tai-o-hae became the seat of power of the whites in
the islands ; it waxed in importance, saw admirals, gov-
ernors, and bishops sitting in state on the broad veran-
das of government buildings, witnessed that new thing,
the making of a king and queen, knew the stolid march
of convicts, white and brown, images of saints carried
in processions, and schools opened to regenerate the
race of idol-worshippers.

are WHITE SHADOWS

Tai-o-hae saw all the plans of grandeur wane, saw
saloons and opium, vice and disease, fastened upon the
natives, and saw the converted, the old gods overthrown,
the new God reigning, cut down like trees when the
fire runs wild in the forest.

The dream of minting the strength and happiness
of the giant men of the islands into gold for the white
lahor-kings dissolved into a nightmare as the giants per-
ished. It was hard to make the free peoples toil as
slaves for foreign masters, so the foreign masters
brought opium. To get this "Cause of Wonder Sleep,"
of more delight than kava, the Marquesan was taught
to hoe and garner cotton, to gather copra and even to
become the servant of the white man. The hopes of
the invaders were rosy. They faded quickly. The
Marquesans faded faster. The saloons of Tai-o-hae
were gutters of drunkenness. The paepaes were wail-
ing-places for the dead. No government arrested vice
or stopped the traffic in death-dealing drugs until too
late. Then, with no people left to exploit, the colonial
ministers in Paris forgot the Marquesas.

In the lifetime of a man, Tai-o-hae swelled from a
simple native village with thousands of healthy, happy
people, to the capital of an archipelago, with warships,
troops, prisons, churches, schools, and plantations, and
reverted to a deserted, melancholy beach, with decay-
ing, uninhabited buildings testifying to catastrophe.
Since Kahuiti, my man-eating friend of Taaoa, was
born, the cycle had been completed.

I was on my way now to see, in Tai-o-hae, a man
who was giving his life to bring the white man's religion
to the few dying natives who remained.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 277

At dusk the wind died, and we put out the oars.
Hour after hour the rowers pulled, chanting at times
ancient lays of the war-canoes, of the fierce fights of
their fathers when hundreds fed the sharks after the
destruction of their vessels by the conquerors, and of
the old gods who had reigned before the white men came,
Pere Yictorien listened musingly.

"They should be singing of the Blessed Mother or of
Joan," he said with sorrow. "But when they pull so
well I cannot deny them a thread of that old pagan
warp. Those devils whom they once worshipped wait
about incessantly for a word of praise. They hate the
idea that we are hurrying to the mission, and they would
like well to delay us."

Whatever the desires of those devils, they were
balked, for the wind came fair during the second night,
and when the second dawning came we were in the bay
of Tai-o-hae.

It was a basin of motionless green water, held in the
curve of a shore shaped like a horseshoe, with two huge
headlands of rock for the calks. The beach was a rim
of white between the azure of the water and the dark
green of the hills that rose steeply from it. Above
them the clouds hung in varying shapes, here lit by the
sun to snowy fleece, there black and lowering. On the
lower slopes a few houses peeped from the embowering
parau trees, and on a small hill, near the dismantled
fort, the flag of France drooped above the gendarme's
cabin*

By eight o'clock in the morning, when we reached
the shore, the beach was shimmering in the sunlight,
the sand gleaming under the intense rays as if reflecting

278 WHITE SHADOWS

the beams of gigantic mirrors. Heat-waves quivered
ia the moist air.

This was the beach that had witnessed the strange
career of John Howard, a Yankee sailor who had fled
a Yankee ship fifty years before and made his bed for
good and all in the Marquesas. Lying Bill Pincher
had told ine the story. Howard, known to the natives
as T'yonny, had been welcomed by them in their gen-
erous way, and the tahuna had decorated him from
head to foot in the very highest style of the period. In
a few years, what with this tattooing and with sunburn,
one would have sworn him to be a Polynesian. He
was ambitious, and by alliances acquired an entire valley,
which he left to his son, T'yonny Junior. Mr. Howard,
senior, garbed himself like the natives and was like them
in many ways, but he retained a deep love for his coun-
try and its flag, and when he saw an American man-
of-war entering the harbor, he went aboard with his
many tawny relatives-in-law.

The captain was amazed to hear him talking with the
sailors.

" 'E was blooming well knocked off 'is pins," said Ly-
ing Bill. " 'Blow me!' 'e sez, 'if that blooming cannibal
don't talk the King's English as if 'e was born in New
York!' 'E 'ad 'im down in the cabin to 'ave a drink,
thinking 'e was a big chief. 'Oward took a cigar and
smoked it and drank 'is whiskey with a gulp and a wry
face like all Americans.

" *I must say/ sez the captain, 'y u ' re the most in-
telligent 'eathen I \e seen in the *ole blooming run.*

""Eathen?' sez 'Oward. 'Me a 'eathen 1 I was
born in Iowa, and I 'm a blooming good American/

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 279

" 'What, you an American citizen?' sez the captdn*
'Born in my own state, and painted up like Sitting Bull
on the warpath? Get off this ship/ sez 'e, wild, 'get
off this ship, or I '11 put you in irons and take you back
to the blooming jail you escaped from!'

" 'Oward leaped over the side and swum ashore."

An avenue ran the length of the beach, shaded by
trees, and crossing a gentle stream. Along this avenue
was all the life and commerce of Tai~o-hae, Two
traders' shops, empty offices, a gendarme, a handful of
motley half-castes lounging under the trees this was
all that was left of former greatness. Only nature had
not changed. It flung over the broken remnants of the
glory and the dream its lovely cloak of verdure and of
flower. Man had almost ceased to be a figure in the
scene he had dominated for untold centuries.

Crossing the stepping-stones of the brook we met a
darkish, stout man in overalls.

"Good morn'," he said pleasantly. I looked at him
and guessed his name at once.

"Good-morning," I answered. "You are the son of
T'yonny."

"My father, Mist* Howard, dead/' he said. "You
Menikc like him?**

Before I could answer something entered my ear and
something my nose. These somethings buzzed and bit
f earsomely. I coughed and sputtered. An old woman
on the bank was sitting in the smudge of a fire of cocoa^
nut husks. She was scratching her arms and legs, cov-
ered with angry red blotches.

"The nono$ never stop biting/* she said in French.
These nonos are the dread sand-flies that Pere Victorien

280 WHITE SHADOWS

had run from to get some sleep in Atuona. They are a
kind of gadfly, red-hot needles on wings.

We sauntered along the road, tormented by the
buzzing pests at which we constantly slapped and, cross-
ing a tiny bridge over the brook, approached the Mission
of Tai-o-hae, that once pompous and powerful center
of the diffusion of the faith throughout the Marquesas.
The road was lined with guavas, mangos, cocoanuts, and
tamarinds, all planted with precision and care. The
ambitious fathers who had begun these plantings scores
of years before had provided the choicest fruits for their
table. All over the world the members of the great re-
ligious orders of Europe have carried the seeds of the
best varieties of fruits and flowers, of trees and shrubs
and vegetables; more than organized science they de-
serve the credit for introducing non-native species into
all climes.

About the mission grounds was a stone wall, stout and
fairly high, which had assured protection when orgies of
indulgence in rum had made the natives brutal. The
clergy must survive if souls are to be saved. Within
the Wall stood the church, the school, and a rambling
rectory, all made beautiful by age and the artistry of
tropical nature. Mosses and lichens, mosaics of many
shades of green, faint touches of red and yellow mould,
covered the old walls which were fast decaying and fall-
ing to pieces.

By the half-unhinged door stood an old man of vener-
able figure, his long beard still dark, though his hair was
quite white. He wore a soiled soutane down to the
ankles of his rusty shoes, a sweaty, stained, smothering
gown of black broadcloth, which rose and fell with his

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

hurried respiration. His eyes of deepest brown, lai J
and lustrous, were the eyes of an old child, shining with
simple enthusiasms and lit with a hundred memories of
worthy j/jer^r;!":^:-::^;^- or efforts.

Pere Victorien presented me, saying that I was a
lover of the Marquesas, and specially interested in Joan
of Arc. Fere Simeon seized me by the hand and, draw-
ing me toward him, gave me the accolade as if I were a
reunited brother. Then he presented me to a Mar-
quesan man at his side, ff Le chef de I'isle de Huapu"
who was waiting to escort him to that island that he
might say mass and hear confession. The chief was for
leaving at once, and Pere Simeon lamented that he had
no time in which to talk to me.

I said I had heard it bruited in my island of Hiva-oa
that the celebration of the fete of Joan of Arc had been
marked by extraordinary events indicating a special ap-
preciation by the heavenly hosts.

Tears came into the eyes of the old priest. He dis-
missed the chief at once, and after saying farewell to
Pere Yictorien, who was embarking immediately for his
own island of Haitheu, Pere Simeon and I entered his
study, a pitifully shabby room where rickety furniture,
quaking floor, tattered wall-coverings, and cracked
plates and goblets spelled the story of the passing of
an institution once possessing grandeur and force.
Seated in the only two sound chairs, with wine and
cigarettes before us, we took up the subject so dear
to Pere Simeon's heart.

"I am glad if you cannot be a Frenchman that at
least you are not an Snglishrrian," he said fervently.
"God has punished England for the murder of Jeanne

WHITE SHADOWS

Arc. That day at Rouen when they burned my be-
loved patroness ended England. Now the English are
but merchants, and they have a heretical church.

"You should have seen the honors we paid the Maid
here. Mais, Monsieur, she has done much for these is-
lands. The natives love her. She is a saint. She
should be canonized. But the opposition will not down.
There is reason to believe that the devil, Satan himself,
or at least important aides of his, are laboring against
the doing of justice to the Maid. She is powerful now,
and doubtless has great influence with the Holy Virgin
in Heaven, but as a true saint she would be invincible."
The old priest's eyes shone with his faith.

"You do not doubt her miraculous intercession?" I
asked*

Pere Simeon Ht another cigarette, watered his wine,
and lifted from a shelf a sheaf of pamphlets. They
were hectographed, not printed from type, for he is the
human printing-press of all this region, and all were in
his clear and exquisite writing. He held them and re-
ferred to them as he went on.

"She was born five hundred years ago on the day of
the procession in Tai-o-hae. That itself is a marvel.
Such an anniversary occurs but twice in a millennium,
After all my humble services in these islands that I
should be permitted to be here on such a wonderful day
proves to me the everlasting mercy of God. Here is
the account I have written in Marquesan of her life,
and here the record of the fete upon the anniversary.'*

As he showed me the brochures written beautifully in
purple and red inks, recording the history of the Maid
of Orleans, with many canticles in her praise, learned

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 283

dissertations upon her career and holiness, maps showing
her march and starred at Oleane, Kbpiegne, and Rua
to indicate that great things had occurred at Orleans,
C;.:^:::^?, and Rouen, Pere Simeon pointed out to me
that it was of supreme importance that the "*rquesr.n
people should be given a proper u ::T?rs!:;:r'l:r? of the
historical and geographical conditions of England and
France in Joan's time.

He had spent months, even years, in preparing for the
celebration of her fete-day.

"And Monsieur, by the blessed grace of Joan, only
the whites got drunk. Not a Marquesas was far gone
in liquor throughout the three days of the feast. There
was temptation in plenty, for though I gave only the
chiefs and a few intimates any wine, several of the Euro-
peans in their enthusiasm for our dear patroness dis-
tributed absinthe and rum to those who had the price.
There was a moment when it seemed touch and go be-
tween the devil and Joan. But, oh, how she came to
our rescue! I reproached the whites, locked up the
rum, and Joan did the rest. It was a three-days* feast
of innocence/'

"But there are not many whites here?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "There are one hundred and
twenty people in Tai-o-hae now, and but a few are
whites. Alas, mon ami, they do not set a good example.
They mean well; they are brave men, but they do not
keep the commandments. Here is a chart I drew show-
ing the rise of the church since Peter. It is divided into
twenty periods, and I have allotted the fifteenth to Joan.
She well merits a period/*

My mind continually harked back to the prompting 1

284 WHITE SHADOWS

of Pere Victorien concerning the horse and the girl of
the juhilee.

"There were signs at the commemoration?" I inter-
posed.

Pere Simeon glanced at me eagerly. His naivete
was not of ignorance of men and their motives. He had
confessed royalty, cannibals, pirates, and nuns. The
souls of men were naked under his scrutiny. But his
faith burned like a lambent flame, and to win to the
standard of the Maid of Orleans one who would listen
was a duty owed her, and a rare chance to aid a fellow
mortal

He rose and brushed the cigarette ashes down the
front of his frayed cassock as an old native woman
responded to his call and brought another bottle of Bor-
deaux. The nonos were incessantly active. I slapped
at them constantly and sucked at the wounds they
made. But he paid no attention to them at all except
when they attacked him under his soutane; then he
struck convulsively at the spot.

"God sends us such trials to brighten our crown," he
said comfortingly. "I have seen white men dead from
the nonos. They were not here in the old days, but since
the jungle has overrun us because of depopulation, they
are frightful. During the mass, when the priest cannot
defend himself, they are worst, as if sent by the devil
who hates the holy sacrifice. But, mon vieu%> you were
asking about those signs. Alors, I will give the facts to
you, and you can judge."

He poured me a goblet of the wine ; I removed my
cotton coat, covered my hands with it, against the gad-
flies, and prepared to listen.

IX THE SOUTH SEAS 285

'""Seven years before the great anniversary," said Pere
Simeon, sipping his wine, "I thought out my plan.
There would be masses, */;-^ '::?=:, benedictions, litanies,
and choirs. But rny mind was set upon a representa-
tion of the ]Maid as she rode into Rheims to crown the
ting after her victories. She was, you will remember,
clothed all in white armor and rode a white horse, both
the emblems of purity. That was the note I would
sound, for I believe too much had been made of Joan the
warrior, Joan the heroine, and not enough of Joan the
saint. Oh, Monsieur, there have been evil forces at
work there 1"

He clasped his thigh with both hands and groaned,
and I knew that though a nono had bitten him there, his
anguish was more of soul than body. I lighted his
cigarette, as he proceeded:

"Two things were needful above all; a handsome
white horse and a Marquesan girl of virtue. Three
years before the jubilee I was enabled, through a gift
inspired by Joan, to buy a horse of that kind in Hiva-oa.
I had this mare pastured on that island until the time
came for bringing her here.

"Now as to the girl, I found in the nun's school a child
who was beautiful, strong, and good. Her father was
the captain of a foreign vessel and had dwelt here for a
time; he was of your country. Of tlie mother I will not
speak. The girl was everything to be desired. But
this was seven years before the day of the fete. That
was a difficulty.

"I stressed to the good sisters the absolute necessity
of bringing up the child in the perfect path of sanctity.
I had her dedicated to Joan, and special prayers were

236 WHITE SHADOWS

said by me and by the nuns that the evil one would not
trap her into the sins of other Marquesan girls. Also
she was observed diligently. For seven years we
watched and prayed, and Monsieur, we succeeded, I
will not say that it was a miracle, but it was a very strik-
ing triumph for Joan.

"That for the human; now for the beast, A month
before the fete I commissioned Captain Capriata to
bring the mare to Tai-o-hae in his schooner. The ani-
mal came safely to the harbor. She was still on deck
when a storm arose, and Capriata thought it best for
him to lift his anchor and go to the open sea. The wind
was driving hard toward the shore, and there was danger
of shipwreck/'

The old priest stood up and, leading me to a window,
pointed to the extreme end of the horseshoe circle of
the bay.

"See that point," he said, "Right there, just as
Capriata swung his vessel to head for the sea, the mare
broke loose from her halter, and in a bound reached the
rail of the schooner and leaped into the waves. Capri-
ata could do nothing. The schooner was in peril, and
he, with his hand upon the wheel and his men at the
sails, could only utter an oath. He confesses he did
that, and you will find no man more convinced of the
miracle than he."

The aged missionary paused, his eyes glowing. The
nonos that settled in a swarm on his swollen, poisoned
hands were nothing to him in the rapture of that
memory.

"This happened at night. Throughout the darkness
the schooner stayed outside the bay, returning only at

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 287

.! /".- 1 ' Immediately after anchoring, the captain
;V..^---'~! to inform me of the i-zi.-sf ..-Iu:*c, and found me
spying mass. It was one of the few times he had ever
been in the sacred edifice. 1 '

Pexe Simeon smiled, and held up one finger to em-
phasize my attention. "As soon as mass was finished,
Capriata told me of wliat had l^y^ened. and his cer-
tainty that the mare was drowned. I fell on my knees
and said a d:spairbj prayer to Joan. That instant we
heard a neigh outside, anu rushing out of the church, we
saw, cropping the grass in the mission enclosure, the
white mare that was destined to bear the figure of Joan
in the celebration cf her fete."

I could not restrain an exclamation of amazement.

"Absolument" answered Pere Simeon, "Unbe-
lievers might explain that waves swept the mare ashore,
and that through some instinct she found her way along
the beach or over the hills. But that she should come to
the mission grounds, to the very spot where her home
was to be, though she had never seen the islands before
no, my friend, not even the materialist could explain
that as less than supernatural. I have sent the proofs
to our order in T!e!jiuni. They will form part of the
evidence that will one day be offered to bring about the
canonization of Joan."

"And the procession, was it successful?" I inquired.

"Mois out! It was magnificent. When it started
there was a grand fanfare of trumpets, drums, fire-
works, and guns. Xever was there such a noise here
since the days of battle between the whites and the na-
tives. There were four choirs of fifty voices each,

23S VVlITJ2i

natives from all these nearby islands, each with a com-
mon chant in French and particular himines in Mar-
quesan. I walked first with the Blessed Sacrament;
then came Captain Capriata with the banner of the mis-
sion, and then, proceeded by a choir, came the virgin on
the white horse.

"She was all in silver armor, as was the mare. Two
years before I had sent to France for the pasteboard and
the silver paper, and had made the armor. The helmet
was the pi&ce de resistance. The girl wore it as the
Maid herself, and sat the horse without faltering, despite
the nonos and the heat. It was a wonderful day for
Joan and for the Marquesas."

He sat for a moment lost in the vision.

"So it was all as you had planned?"

"Mon ami, it was not I, but Joan herself, to whom all
honor belongs. There Was a moment Captain Capri-
ata had taken absinthe with his morning popoi, and was
unsteady. He stumbled. I called to him to breathe a
prayer to his patron saint he is of Ajaccio in Corsica
and to call upon Joan for aid. He straightened up
at once, after one fall, and boBp the white banner of the
Maid in good style from the mission to the deserted inn
by the leper-house.

"We had three superb feasts, one on each day of the
fete. We had speeches and songs, three masses a day to
accommodate all, four first communicants, and two mar-
riages. I will tell you, though it may be denied by the
commercial missionaries, that five protestants attended
and recanted."

Pejre Simeon's eyes flashed as he recalled those
memorable days. He fell into a reverie, scratching his

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 289

legs after the nonos and letting his cigarette go out.

I arose to depart. He must go to Huapu with the
chief, who was again at the door.

"And did the fete help the parish?" I asked with that
bromidic zeal to please that so often discloses the, fly just
when the ointment's smell is sweetest.

"Alas!" he replied, with a sorrowful shake of his
heard. "Even the girl who had worn the white armor
leaped from the mast of a ship to escape infamy and
was drowned. Yet there was grandeur of sacrifice in
that. But for the others, they die fast, too. Some
day the priest will be alone here without a flock,"

He picked up a garment or two, placed the Holy
". Sacrament with pious care in his breast, and we walked
together through the mournful and decaying village,
passing a few melancholy natives.

"I said to Pere Simeon as he stepped into the canoe,
"You are like a shepherd who pursues his sheep wher-
ever they may wander, to gather them Into the fold at
last."

"C'est vrai" he smiled sadly. "The bishop himself
had to go to Hiva-oa from here, because there were
really not enough people left alive for the seat of his
bishopric. At least, there will be some here when I die,
for I am old. Ah, thirty years ago, when I came here,
there were souls .to be saved! Thousands of them.
But I love the last one. There are still a hundred left
on Huapu. There is work yet, for the devil grows
more active yearly/*

CHAPTER XXV

f

America's claim to the Marquesas; adventures of Captain Porter in 1812;
war between Haapa and Tai-o-hae, and the conquest of Typee valley.

AMERICA might have been responsible for the
death of the Marquesan race had not the young
nation been engaged in a deadly struggle with
Great Britain when an American naval captain, David
Porter, seized Nuka-hiva. A hundred years ago the
Stars and Stripes floated over the little hill above the
bay, and American cannou upon it commanded the
village of Tai-o-hae. Beneath the verdure is still buried
the proclamation of Porter, with coins of the young re-
public, unless the natives dug up the bottle after the
destruction of the last of Porter's forces. They wit-
nessed the ceremony of its planting, which must have
appeared to them a ritual to please the powerful gods of
the whites. Unless respect for the tapu placed on the
bottle by "Opotee" restrained them, they probably
brought it to the light and examined the magic under its
cork.

The adventures of Porter here were as strange and
romantic as those of any of the hundreds of the gypsies
of the sea who sailed this tropic and spilled the blood of
a people unused to their ways and ignorant of their in-
ventions and weapons of power.

Porter had left the United States in command of the
frigate Essex, to destroy British shipping, capture Brit-
ish ships, and British sailors. Porter, son and nephew

290

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 291

of American naval officers, destined to be foster-fathei
of Farragut, the first American admiral, and father of
the great Admiral Porter, was then in Ms early thirties
and loved a fight. He harried the British in the At-
lantic, doubled Cape Horn without orders, and did them
evil on the high seas, and at last, with many prisoners
and with prize crews aboard his captures, he made for
the Marquesas to refresh his men, repair his ships, and
get water, food, and wood for the voyage home.

In Tai-o-hae Bay he moored his fleet, and was met by
flocks of friendly canoes and great numbers of the beau-
tiful island women, who swam out to meet the strangers.
Among them he found Wilson, an Englishman who had
long been here and who was tattooed from head to foot.
On first seeing this man Porter was strongly prejudiced
against him, but found him extremely useful as an in-
terpreter, and concluded that he was an inoffensive fel-
low whose only failing was a strong attachment to rum.
With Wilson's eagerly offered help, Porter made
friends with the people of Tai-o-hae, established a camp
on shore, and set about revictualing his fleet.

The tribes of Tai-o-hae, or Tieuhoy, as Porter called
it, were annoyed by the combative Hapaa tribe, or col-
lection of tribes, which dwelt in a nearby valley, and
these doughty warriors came within half a mile of the
American camp, cut down the breadfruit trees, and
made hideous gestures of derision at the white men.
In response, Porter landed a six-pound gun, tremend-
ously heavy, and said that if the Tai-o-hae tribe would
carry it to the top of a high mountain overlooking the
Hapaa valley, he would drive the Hapaas from the hills
where they stood and threatened to descend.

292 WHITE SHADOWS

To Porter's amazement, the Tai-o-hae men, sur-
mounting incredible difficulties, laid the gun in position,
and as the Hapaas scorned the futile-looking contriv-
ance and declared that they would not make peace with
the whites, Porter sent his first assistant with forty
men, armed with muskets and accompanied by natives
carrying these weapons and ammunition for the can-
non.

The battle began with a great roar of exploding gun-
powder, and from the ships the Americans saw their
men driving from height to height the Hapaas, who
fought as they retreated, daring the enemy to follow
them. A friendly native bore the American flag and
waved it in triumph as he skipped from crag to crag,
well in the rear of the white men who pursued the fleeing
enemy.

In the afternoon the victorious forces descended, car-
rying five dead. The Hapaas, fighting with stones
flung from slings and with spears, had taken refuge, to
the number of four or five thousand, in a fortress on the
brow of a hill. Not one of them had been wounded, and
from their impassable heights they threw down jeers
and. showers of stones upon the retiring Tai-o-haes and
their white allies.

This was intolerable. On the second day, with aug-
mented forces, the Americans stormed the height and
took the fort, killing many Hapaas, who, knowing noth-
ing of the effect of musket bullets, fought till dead.
The wounded were dispatched with war-clubs by the
Tai-o-haes, who dipped their spears in the blood. Wil-
son said the Tai-o-haes would eat the corpses. Porter,
horrified, interrogated his allies, who denied any such

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 293

horrid appetite, so that Porter was not sure what to be-
lieve.

The Hapaas were now become lovers of the whites,
and sent a deputation to complain that the Taipis
(Typees), in another valley, harrassed them and, being
their traditional enemies, were contemplating raiding
Hapaa Valley. The Typees were the most terribJe of
all the Nuka-hivans, with four thousand fighting men,
with strongest fortifications and the most resolute
hearts.

The Typees were informed that they must be peace-
ful, also that they must send many presents as proof
of friendliness, or the white men would drive them from
their valley. The Typees replied that if Porter were
strong enough, he could come and take them. They
said the Americans were white lizards; they could not
climb the mountains without Marquesans to carry their
guns, and yet they talked of chastising the Typees, who
had never fled before an enemy and whose gods were
unbeatable. They dared the white men to come among
them.

At this juncture Porter faced treachery in his own
camp. He had many English prisoners captured from
British ships, and these made a plot to escape by poison-
ing the rum of the Americans, Porter learned of this,
and finding an American sentry asleep he shot him with
his own hand, and ordered every Englishman put in
irons. He was also troubled by mutinies among his
own men, who were loth to face any more battles,
being contented as they were with plenty of drink, the
best of food, and the passionate devotion of the native
women, who thronged the camp day and night. With

294 WHITE SHADOWS

no light hand Porter put down revolt and mutiny, and
prepared to begin war on the Typees.

First he built a strong fort, assisted by the Tai-o-haes
and Hapaas, and there he took possession of the Mar-
quesas in the name of the United States. On Novem-
ber 19, 1813, the American flag was run up over the
fort, a salute of seventeen guns was fired from the artil-
lery .mounted there and answered from the ships in the
bay. Rum was freely distributed, and standing in a
great concourse of wondering natives, with the English-
man, Wilson, at his side interpreting his words, Porter
read the following proclamation:

It is hereby made known to the world that I, David Porter,
a captain in the navy of the United States of America, now in
command of the United States frigate Essex, have, on the part
of the United States, taken possession of the island called by
the natives Nooaheevah, generally known by the name of Sir
Henry Martin's Island, but now called Madison's Island. That
by the request and assistance of the friendly tribes residing in
the valley of Tieuhoy, as well as of the tribes residing on the
mountains, whom we have conquered and rendered tributary
to our flag, I have caused the village of Madison to be built,
consisting of six convenient houses, a rope-walk, bakery, and
other appurtenances, and for the protection of the same, as
well as for that of the friendly natives, I have constructed a
fort calculated for mounting sixteen guns, whereon I have
mounted four, and called the same Fort Madison.

Our rights to this island being founded on Priority of dis-
covery, conquest, and possession, cannot be disputed. But the
natives, to secure to themselves that friendly protection which
their defenseless situation so much required, have requested to
be admitted into the great American family, whose pure re-
publican policy approaches so near their own. Anil in order
to encourage these views to their own interest and happiness,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 295

as well as to render secure our claim to an island valuable on
many considerations, I have taken on myself to promise them
that they shall be so adopted; that our chief shall be their
chief ; and they have given assurances that such of their brethren
as may hereafter visit them from the United States shall enjoy
a welcome and hospitable reception among them and be fur-
nished with whatever refreshments and supplies the island may
afford; that they will protect them against all their enemies
and as far as lies in their power prevent the subjects of Great
Britain from coming among them until peace shall take place
between the two nations.

There followed a list of the tribes from whom Porter
had received presents, to the number of thirty-one tribes,
and the document continued:

Influenced by considerations of humanity, which promise
speedy civilization to a race of men who enjoy every mental
and bodily endowment which nature can bestow, and which re-
quires only art to perfect, as well as by views of policy, which
secure to ray country a fruitful and populous island possessing
every advantage of security and supplies for ships, and which
of all others is most happily situated as respects climate and
local position, I do declare that I have, in the most solemn
manner, under the American flag displayed in Fort Madison
and in the presence of numerous witnesses, taken possession of
the said island for the use of the United States.

To the guileless natives, made happy with rum, listen-
ing to the necessarily imperfect translation of these
words, the ceremony may well have been a strange magic
to unknown gods, but it is not difficult to imagine the
feelings of Wilson, the tattooed Englishman, as he
translated this proclamation giving the rich and happy
islands to a country at war with his own* He listened
and repeated, however, with patriotic protests unut-

296 WHITE SHADOWS

tered, and prepared to assist Porter in his contemplated
war against the Typees.

A week later one of the warships, with five boats and
ten war-canoes, sailed for the Typee beach. Ten canoes
of Hapaas joined them there. The tops of all the
neighboring mountains were thronged with friendly
warriors armed with clubs, spears, and slings, and alto-
gether not less than five thousand men were in the forces
under Porter, among them thirty-five Americans with
guns, which he thought enough.

The Typees pelted them with stones as they sat at
breakfast, and Porter sent a native ambassador, offering
peace at the price of submission. He came back, run-
ning madly and bruised by his reception. Porter then
ordered the advance.

The company advanced into the bushes, and were re-
ceived by a veritable rain of stones and spears. Not
an enemy was in sight. On all sides they heard the
snapping sound of the slings, the whistling of the stones,
the sibilant hiss of the spears that at every step fell in
increasing numbers, but they could not see whence they
came, and no whisper or rustle of underbrush revealed
the lurking Typees.

They pushed on, hoping to get through the thicket,
which Wilson had assured them was of no great extent.
Lieutenant Down's leg was shattered by a stone, and
Porter had to send a party with him to the rear. This
left but twenty-four white men. The native allies did
no fighting, but merely looked on. They were not
going to make bitterer enemies of the Typees if the god-
like whites could not whip them. The situation was
desperate.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 297

However, Porter chose to go on. They crossed a
river, and in a jungle had to crawl on their hands and
knees to make progress. They thought themselves
happy to make their way through this, but immediately
found themselves confronted by a high wall of rock, be-
yond which the enemy took their stand and showered
down stones. The cartridges were almost exhausted.
Porter sent four men to the ship for more, and, with
three men knocked senseless by stones, was reduced to
sixteen men.

There was nothing to do but run for safety, and pur-
sued by the sneering foe, they gained the beach.
Thence he sent another messenger to the Typees
offering them another chance to surrender and pay
tribute.

The Typees returned word that they "had driven the
whites before them, that their guns missed fire often,
that bullets were not as painful as stones or spears, that
they had plenty of men to spare and the whites had not.
They had counted the boats, knew the number they
would carry, and laughed at the whites."

The Hapaas and other allies came down from the
hills and began to discuss the victory of the Typees, with
fear in their voices and a certain disdain of the whites.
Porter ordered his men into the boats to return to the
ship, but scarcely had they reached it when the Typees
rushed on the Hapaas and drove them into the water.
Porter returned to Tai-o-hae.

There he saw no alternative but to whip tHe Typees
soundly. This time he determined to lack no force, and
to go without allies. He selected two hundred men
from his ships and prizes, and, with guides, upon a

298 WHITE SHADOWS

moonlight evening started to march overland to Typee
Valley.

At midnight they heard the drums beating in Typee
Valley. They had had a fearful march over mountain
and dale and around yawning precipices. Silently they
had struggled on, so as to give no hint of their intention
to Typee sentinels or even to a Hapaa village. Num-
bers of the Tai-o-hae had followed them, but quir tly, and
these now told Porter that the songs floating up from
the Typee settlements were rejoicings at their victory
over the whites and prayers to the gods to send rain to
spoil the guns.

Porter was for descending at once, but the Tai-o-
haes warned him that the path was so steep and
dangerous that even in daylight it would take all their
skill to go down it. To attempt it at night would he
inviting death.

The Americans lay down to rest on this height, which
commanded Typee Valley, and shortly rain began to
fall in torrents. Cries of joy and praise to their gods
arose from the Typees. Porter and his men, huddled
in puddles, unable to find shelter, and fearful that every
blast of the storm might hurl them from their slippery
height, tried in vain to keep muskets and powder dry.

At daybreak they found half the ammunition useless,
and themselves wearied, while the steepness of the track
to the valley, and its treacherous condition after the
rain made it wise to seek the Hapaas for rest and food.
But, first, they fired a volley to let friendly tribes know
they still had serviceable weapons, and as threat and
warning to the Typees. They heard the echo in the
blowing of war-conches, shouts of defiance, and the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 299

squealings of the pigs which the Typees began to catch
for removal to the rear.

The Hapaas were none too pleasant to the whites, and
had to be forced by threats to bringing and cooking hogs
and breadfruit. All day the Americans rested and
prepared their arms, at night they slept, and at the next
daybreak they stood again to view the scene of their
approaching battle. ,

The valley lay far below them, about nine miles in
length and three in width, surrounded on every side, ex-
cept at the beach, by lofty mountains. The upper part
was bounded by a precipice many hundred feet in
height, from which a handsome waterfall dropped and
formed a meandering stream that found its outlet in the
sea. Villages were scattered here and there, in the
shade of luxuriant cocoanut- and breadfruit-groves;
plantations were laid out in good order, enclosed within
stone walls and carefully cultivated; roads hedged with
bananas cut across the spread of green; everything
spoke of industry, abundance, and happiness,

A large force of Typee warriors, gathered beside the
river that glided near the foot of the mountain, dared
the invaders to descend. In their rear was a fortified
village, secured by strong stone walls. Nevertheless,
the whites started down, and in a shower of stones cap-
tured the village, killed the chief Typee warrior, and
chasing his men from wall to wall, slew all who did not
escape. Few fled, however; they charged repeatedly,
even to the very barrels of the muskets and pistols.

Porter realized that he would have to fight his way
over every foot of the valley. He cautioned conserva-
tion of cartridges, ,nd leaving two small parties behind

300 WHITE SHADOWS

to guard the wounded, he, with the main body, marched
onward, followed by hordes of Tai-o-hae and Hapaa
men, who dispatched the wounded Typees with stones
and spears. They burned and destroyed ten villages
one by one as they were reached, until the head of the
valley was reached.

At the foot of the waterfall they turned and began the
nine-mile tramp to the bay. Again they had to meet
spear and stone as they burned temples and homes,
great canoes, and wooden gods. Finally Porter at-
tained the fort that had stopped him during the first
fight, and found it a magnificent piece of construction,
of great basaltic slabs, impregnable from the beach
side. He saw that if he had tried that entrance to the
valley again, he would have failed as before. Only
heavy artillery could have conquered that mighty
stronghold.

From the beach the Americans climbed by an easier
ascent into the mountains, leaving a desolated valley
behind them, and after feasting with the Hapaas, they
marched back to Tai-o-hae almost dead with fatigue.

The Typees sued for peace, and when asked for four
hundred hogs sent so many that Porter released five
hundred after branding them. He had made peace be-
tween all the tribes; war was at an end; and with the
island subdued, Porter sailed again to make war on
British shipping.

He left behind him three captured ships in charge of
three officers and twenty men, with six prisoners of war,
ordering them to remain five months and then go to
Chile if no word came from him. Within a few days
the natives began again to show the spirit of resistance

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 301

and were brought to courtesy by a show of force. Then
another difficulty arose. All but eight of the crew
joined with the English prisoners in seizing the officers,
and put Lieutenant Gamble, the commander, with four
loyal seamen, adrift in a small boat, while the mutineers
went to sea in one of the English ships.

The five men reached another of the ships in the bay,
where they learned that Wilson had instigated the
mutiny. The worst had not come, for very soon the na-
tives, perhaps also urged on by the Englishman, mur-
dered all the others but Gamble, one seaman, one mid-
shipman, and five wounded men. Of the eight survivors
only one was acquainted with the management of a ship,
and all were sufferings from wounds or disease. With
these men Lieutenant Gamble put to sea.

After incredible hardship, he succeeded in reaching
Hawaii, only to be captured by a British frigate which
a few weeks earlier had assisted in the capture of the
Essex and Captain Porter. The United States never
ratified Porter's occupation of Nuka-hiva, and it was
left for the French thirty years later to seize the group.

At about the same time Herman Melville, an Ameri-
can sailor, ventured overland into Typee Valley, and
was captured and treated as a royal guest by the Typee
people. He lived there many months, and heard no
whisper of the havoc wrought by his countrymen a little
time before. The Typees had forgiven and forgotten
it; he found them a happy, healthy, beautiful race, liv-
ing peacefully and comfortably in their communistic
society, coveting nothing from each other as there was
plenty for all, eager to do honor to a strange guest who,
they hoped, would teach them many useful things.

CHAPTER XXVI

A visit to Typee; story of the old man who returned too late.

IS AID, of course, that I must visit Typee, the scene
of Porter's bloody raid and Herman Melville's ex-
ploits, and while I was making arrangements to get
a horse in Tai-o-hae I met Haus Ramqe, supercargo of
the schooner Moana, who related a story concerning the
valley.

"I was working in the store of the Societe Comerciale
de TOcean in Tai-o-hae when the Tropic Bird, a San
Francisco mail-schooner, arrived. That was ten years
ago. An old man, an American, came into our place
and asked the way to Typee.

" 'Ah/ I said, 'you have been reading that book by
Melville/ He made no reply, but asked me to escort
him to the valley. We set out on horseback, and though
he had not said that he had ever been in these islands
before, I saw that he was strangely interested in the
scenes we passed. He was rather feeble with age, and
he grew so excited as we neared the valley that I asked
him what he expected to see there.

"He stopped his horse, and hesitated in his reply.
He was terribly agitated.

" 'I lived in Typee once upon a time/ he said slowly.
"Could there by chance be a woman living there named
Manu? That was a long time ago, and I was young.
Still, I am here, and she may be, too.*

"I looked at him and could not tell him the truth.

308

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 303

It was evident he had made no confidant of the captain
or crew of the Tropic Bird, for they could have told him
of the desolation in Typee. I hated, though, to have
him plump right into the facts.

" 'How many people were there in your day?' I asked
him. He replied that there were many thousands.

" *I lived there three years/ he said. 'I had a sweet-
heart named Manu, and I married her in the Marquesan
way. I was a runaway sailor, and one night on the
beach I was captured and taken away on a ship. I have
been captain of a great American liner for years, al-
ways meaning to come back, and putting it off from
year to year. All my people are dead, and I thought
I would come now and perhaps find her here and end my
days. I have plenty of money.'

"He seemed childish to ine perhaps he really had
lost mental poise by age. I had n't the courage to tell
him the truth. We came on it soon enough. You
must see Typee to realize what people mean to a
place.

"The nonos were simply hell, but as I had lived a good
many years in Tai-o-hae I was hardened to them. The
old man slapped at them occasionally, but made no com-
plaint. He hardly seemed to feel them, or to realize
what their numbers meant. It was when we pushed up
the trail through the valley, and he saw only deserted
paepaes, that he began to look frightened.
" 'Are they all gone? 5 he inquired weakly.
" 'No,' I said, 'there are fifteen or twenty here/ We
came to a clearing and there found the remnant of the
Typees. I questioned them, but none had ever heard of
him. There had been many Manus, the word means

304 WHITE SHADOWS

bird, but as they were the last of the tribe, she must
have been dead before they were born, and they no
longer kept in their memories the names of the dead,
since there were so many, and all would be dead soon.

"The -American still understood enough Marquesan
to understand their answers, and taking me by the arm
he left the horses and led me up the valley till he came
to a spot where there were fragments of an old paepae,
buried in vines and torn apart by their roots.

" 'We lived here/ he said, and, then he sat on the for-
saken stones and cried. He said that they had had two
children, and he had been sure that at least he would find
them alive* His misery made me feel bad, and the
damned nonos, too, and I cried I don't know how
damn sentimental it was, but that was the way it af-
fected me. The old chap seemed so alone in the
world.

" 'It is three miles from here to the beach,' he said,
"and I have seen men coining with their presents for the
chief, walking a yard apart, and yet the line stretched
all the way to the beach.'

"He could hardly ride back to Tai-o-hae, and he de-
parted with the Tropic Bird without saying another
word to any one."

Typee, they told me, was half way to Atiheu and a
good four miles by horse. The road had been good
when the people were many, and was still the main road
of the island, leading through the Valley of Hapaa.
My steed was borrowed of T'yonny Howard, who,
though he owned a valley, poured cement for day's
wages.

"What I do?" he asked, as if I held the answer.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 305

"Nobody to help me work there. I cannot make copra
alone. Even here they bring men from other place to
work. Marquesan die too fast."

If T'yonny revered his father's countrymen, his horse
did not. These island horses are unhappy-looking
skates, though good climbers and sliders.

"You don't need person go with you/' said the son of
the former living picture. "That horsey know. You
stay by him."

The saddle must have been strange to the horsey, for
uneasiness communicated itself from him to me as we set
out, an uneasiness augmented to me by the incessant
vicious pricks of the ever-present nonos.

The way led ever higher above the emerald bay of Tai-
o-hae set in the jade of the forest, and valley after valley
opened below as the trail edged upward on the face of
sheer cliffs or crossed the little plateaus of their sum-
mits. Hapaa lay bathed in a purple mist that hid from
me the mute tokens of depopulation; Hapaa that had
given Porter its thousands of naked warriors, and that
now was devoid of human beings.

Dipping slightly downward again, the trail lay on
the rim of a deep declivity, a sunless gulf in which the
tree-tops fell away in rank below rank into dim depths
of mistiness. There was no sign of human passing on
the vine-grown trail, a vague track through a melan-
choly wilderness that seemed to breathe death and de-
cay. A spirit of gloom seemed to rise from the
shadowed declivity, from the silence of the mournful
wood and the damp darkness of the leaf -hidden earth.

I had given myself over to musing upon the past, but
suddenly in the narrowest part of the trail the beast I

806 WHITE SHADOWS

rode turned and took my canvas-covered toes in his yel-
low teeth. A vague momentary flash of horror came
over me. Did I bestride a metempsyehosized taian-
eater, a revenant from the bloody days of Nuka-hiva?
In those wicked eyes I saw reflected the tales of trans-
migatory vengeance, from the wolf of Little Red Rid-
ing Hood to the ass that one becomes who kills a Brah-
man. I gave vent at the same second to a shriek of
anguish and struck the animal upon the nose, the tender-
est part of his anatomy within reach. He released my
foot, whirled, cavorted, and, as I seized a tree fern on
the bank, went heels over head over the cliff.

T'yonny had said to "stay by horsey," but he could
not have foreseen the road he would take. I was sorry
for him as I heard the reverberations of his crashing fall.
No living thing could escape death in such a drop, for
though the cliff down which he had disappeared was not
absolutely perpendicular, it was nearly so. Peering
over it, I could not see his corpse, for fern and tree-top
hid all below. At least, I thought, he had surcease of
all ills now. And so I descended the steep trail on foot
mostly on one foot until I reached the vale of Typee.

I found myself in a loneliness indescribable and ter-
rible. ISFo sound but that of a waterfall at a distance
parted the somber silence. The trail was through a
thicket of ferns, trees, and wild flowers. The perfume
of Hinano, of the vaovao, with its delicate blue flowers,
and the vaipuhao, whose leaves are scented like violets,
filled the heavy air, and I passed acres of Jcokou, which
looks like tobacco, but has a yellow fruit of delicious
odor. It was such a garden as the prince who woke the
Sleeping Beauty penetrated to reach the palace where

IN THE SOUTH SEAS SOT

she lay entranced, and something of the same sense of
dread magic lay upon it. Humanity was not so much
absent as gone, and a feeling of doom and death was in
the motionless air, which lay like a weight upon leaf
and flower.

The thin, sharp buzzing of the nonos was incessant.
They had come when man departed; there were none
wh6n Porter devastated the valley, nor when Melville
spent his happy months here thirty years later* One
must move briskly to escape them now, and I was push-
ing through the bushes that strove to obliterate the trail
when I came upon a native.

He was so old that he must have been a youth in the
valley when it was visited by the American-liner cap-
tain as a boy. He was quite nude save for a ragged
cincture, and his body had shrunk and puckered, and his
skin had folded and discolored until he looked as if life
had ebbed away from him and left him high and dry be-
tween the past and the hereafter. A ragged chin beard,
ashen in hue, hung below his gaping, empty mouth.
But there was a spirit in his bosom still, for upon his
head he wore a circle of bright flowers to supplement the
sparse locks.

His eyes were barely openable, and his face, indeed,
his whole body, was a coppery green, the soot of the
candlenut, black itself, but blue upon the flesh, having
turned by age to a mottled and hideous color. Only the
striking patterns, where they branched from the biceps
to the chest, were plain.

That he had been one of the great of Nuka-hiva
was certain; the fact was stamped indelibly upon his
person, and though worn and faded to the ghastly

308 WHITE SHADOWS

green of old copper, it remained to proclaim his lineage
and his rank.

"Kaoha te iM!" said this ancient, as he stood in the
path.

"Kaoha ef* I saluted him.

ff Puaka piki enata" he said further, and pointed down
the trail.

"What could he mean? Puaka is pig, piki is to
mount or climh, and enata is man. A great white light
beat about my brow. "The pig men climb?" Could
he mean Rozinante, the steed to whom T'yonny had en-
trusted me, and who had so basely deserted his trust over
a cliff?

I hurried on incredulous, and, in a clearing where
there were three or four horses, beheld the suicide graz-
ing upon the luscious grass. He had lost much cuticle,
and the saddle was in shreds, but the puaka piki enata
was evidently in fairly good health.

The old man had slowly followed me down the trail,
and he stood within the doorway of a rude hut, blinking
in the sun as he watched my movements. In the houses
were altogether fewer than a dozen people. They sat
by cocoanut-husk fires, the acrid smoke of which daunted
the nonos.

The reason any human beings endure such tortures to
remain in this gloomy, deserted spot can only be the af-
fection the Marquesan has for his home. Not until epi-
demics have carried off all but one or two inhabitants
in a valley can those remaining be persuaded to leave
it.

This dozen of the Taipi clan are the remainder of the
twenty Uamqe saw with the heartbroken American.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 309

They have clung to their lonely paepaes despite their
poverty of numbers and the ferocity of the nonos.
They had clearings with cocoanuts and breadfruit, but
they cared no longer to cultivate them, preferring rather
to sit sadly in the curling fumes and dream of the past.
One old man read aloud the "Gospel of St. John" in
Marquesan, and the others listlessly listened, seeming
to drink in little comfort from the verses, which he re-
cited in the chanting monotone of their uta.

Nine miles in length is Typee, from a glorious cata-
ract that leaps over the dark buttress wall where the
mountain bounds the valley, to the blazing beach. And
in all this extent of marvelousfy rich land, the one-time
fondly cherished abode of the most valiant clan of the
Marquesas, of thousands of men and women whose
bodies were as beautiful as the models for the statues the
Greeks made, whose hearts were generous, and whose
minds were eager to learn all good things, there are now
this wretched dozen too old or listless to gather their
own food. In the ruins of a broken and abandoned
paepae, in the shadow of an acre-covering banian, I
smoked and asked myself what a Christ would think of
the havoc wrought by men calling themselves Christians.

CHAPTER XXVII

Journey on the Roberta; the winged cockro.aches; arrival at a Swiss para-
dise in the valley of Oomoa.

1 SAILED from Tai-o-hae for an unknown port,
carried by the schooner Roberta, which had brought
the white mare from Atuona and whose skipper
had bore so well the white banner of Joan in the proces-
sion that did her honor. The Roberta was the only
vessel in those waters and, sailing as she did at the whim
of her captain and the necessities of trade, none knew
when she might return to Nuka-hiva, so I could but ac-
cept the opportunity she offered of reaching the south-
ern group of islands again, and trust to fortune or
favor to return me to my own island of Hiva-oa.

The Roberta lay low in the water, not so heavily
sparred as the Morning Star, or with her under-cut
stern, but old and battered, built for the business of a
thief -catcher, and with a history as scarred as her hull
and as slippery as her decks* Was she not once the
Herman, and before that something else, and yet earlier
something else, built for the Russians to capture the art-
ful poachers of the Smoky Sea? And later a poacher
herself, and still later stealing men, a black-birder, seiz-
ing the unoffending natives of these South Seas and sell-
ing them into slavery of mine or plantation, of guano-
heap and sickening alien clime. Her decks have run
blood, and heard the wailing of the gentle savage torn
from his beloved home and lashed or clubbed into sub-

310

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 311

mission by the superior white* Name and color and rig
had changed time and again, owners and masters had
gone to Davy Jones's locker; the old hrass cannon on
her deck had raked the villages of the Marquesans and
witnessed a thousand deeds of murder and rapine,

I pulled myself aboard by a topping-Jjft, climbed
upon the low cabin-house, and jumped down to the tiny
poop where Jerome Capriata held the helm.

This Corsican, with his more than sixty years, most
of them in these waters, was a Marquesan in his in-
tuitive skill in handling his schooner in all weather, for
knowing these islands by a glimpse of rock or tree, for
landing and taking cargo in all seas. Old and worn,
like the Roberta, he was known to all who ranged the
southern ocean. What romances he had lived and seen
were hidden in his grizzled bosom, for he said little, and
nothing of himself.

The super-cargo, Henry Lee, a Norwegian of twenty-
five years, six of which he had passed among the islands,
set out the rum and wine and a clay bottle of water.
He introduced me to Pere Olivier, a priest of the mis-
sion, whose charge was in the island of Fatu-hiva.
From him I learned that the Roberta was bound 'for
Oomoa, a port of that Island.

That I had not been given the vaguest idea what our
first landfall would be was indicative of the secrecy
maintained by these traders in the competition for copra.
The supply being limited, often it is the first vessel on
the spot after a harvest that is able to buy it, and cap-
tains of schooners guard their movements as an army
its own during a campaign. The traders trust one an-
other as a cat with a mouse trusts another cat.

312 WHITE SHADOWS

The priest was sitting on a ledge below the taffraiL
and I spoke to him in Spanish, as I had heard it was
his tongue. His buenos dias in reply was hearty, and
his voice soft and rich. A handsome man was Padre
Olivier, though in sad disorder. His black soutane, cut
like the woolen gown of our grandmothers, was soaking
wet, and his low rough shoes were muddy. A soiled
bandana was about his head. His finely chiseled fea-
tures, benign and intelligent, were framed by a snow-
white beard, and his eyes, large and limpid, looked
benevolence itself, * He was all affability, and eager
to talk about everything in the world.

The rain, which all day had been falling at intervals,
began again, and as the Eoberta entered the open sea,
she began to kick up her heels. Our conversation lan-
guished. When the supercargo called us below for din-
ner, pride and not appetite made me go. The priest
answered with a groan. Padre Olivier was prostrate
on the deck, his noble head on a pillow, his one piece
of luggage, embroidered with the monogram of Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph, the needlework of the nuns of
Atuona.

"I am seasick if I wade in the surf,' 3 said the priest,
in mournful jest.

The Roberta's cabin was a dark and noisome hole,
filled with demijohns and merchandise, with two or three
untidy bunks in corners, the air soaked with the smells
of thirty years of bilge-water, sealskins, copra, and the
cargoes of island traffic. Capriata, Harry Lee, and I
sat on boxes at a rough table, which we clutched as the
Roberta pitched and rolled.

When the ragged cook brought the first dish, un-

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V ^ .' J ';''' r ' v tf- "*. sv *"t':iw; r v. "' -' -" k " -> x

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EST THE SOUTH SEAS 813

.mistakably a cat swimming in a liquid I could have
sworn by my nose to be drippings from an ammonia tarJk,
I protested a lack of hunger for any food. My ruse
passed for the moment, but was exposed by a flock or
swarm of cockroaches, which, scenting a favorite food,
suddenly sprang upon the table and upon us, leaping
and flying into the plates and drawing Corsican curses
from Capriata and Norwegian maledictions from Lee.
I did not wait to see them throwing the invaders from
the battlements of the table into the moat of salt water
and spilt wine below, but quickly, though feebly, climbed
to the deck and laid myself beside Pere Olivier, nor
could cries that the enemy had been defeated and that
"only a few" were flying about, summon me below
again.

Pere Olivier and I stayed prone all night in alternate
pelting rain and flooding moonlight, as a fair wind
bowled us along at six knots an hour. Padre Olivier,
between naps, recited his rosary to take his mind from
his woes. I could tell when he finished a decade by his
involuntary start as he began a new one. I had no
such comfort as beads and prayers, and the flight of
those schooner griffins had struck me in the solar plexus
of imagination.

"Accept them as stations of the cross, 5 ' said the priest.
"This life is but a step to heaven."

I replied with some comments indicating my belief
that cockroaches belonged on a still lower rung, and
going in an opposite direction.

"I know those Hattes, those sdigauds" he said with
sympathy. "They are sent by Satan to provoke us to
blasphemy. I never go below."

8U WHITE SHADOWS

Those pests of insects can hardly be estimated at their
true dreadfulness by persons unacquainted with the in-
famous habits of the nocturnal beetle of the tropics.
Sluggish creatures in the temperate zone, in warm coun-
tries they develop the power of flying, and obstacles
successfully interposed to their progress in countries
where they merely crawl are ineffectual here. They
had entire possession of the Roberta.

The supercargo, Lee, was not to be blamed, for he
told me that once he had taken time in port to capture
by poisonous lures a number he calculated at eight
thousand, and that within a month those who had es-
caped had repopulated the old schooner as before.
Then he despaired, and let them have sway. To sleep
or eat among them was not possible to me, and the
voyage was a nightmare not relieved by an incident of
the second night.

Capriata, whose feet were calloused from going bare
for years, awoke from a deep slumber that had been
aided by rum, to find that the cockroaches in his berth
had eaten through the half inch or more of hard skin
and had begun to devour his flesh. With blasphemous
and blood-chilling yells he bounded on deck, where he
sat treating the wounds and cursing unrestrainedly for
some time before joining Pere Olivier and me in demo-
cratic slumber on the bare boards. Several weeks
later his feet had not recovered from their envenomed
sores.

When eight bells sounded the hour of four, I got
upon my feet and in the mellow dawn saw a panorama
of peak and precipice, dark and threatening, the coast
of Fatu-hiva and the entrance to Oomoa Bay, the south-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 815

ernmost island of the Marquesas, and the ^ harbor In
which the first white men who saw the islands anchored
over three hundred years ago.

Those Spaniards, on whose ships the cross was seen
in cabin and forecastle, on gun and halberd, murdered
many JVlarquesans at Oomoa to glut their taste for
blood. The standard of death the white flew then has
never been lowered. Oomoa and Hanavave, the adja-
cent hay and village, were resorts for whalers, who
brought a plague of ills that reduced the population of
Fatu-hiva from many thousands to less than three hun-
dred. Consumption was first brought to the islands by
one of these whalers, and made such alarming inroads
on the people of Hanavave that most of the remainder
forsook their homes and crossed to the island of Tahuata,
to escape the devil the white man had let loose among
them.

We sailed on very slowly after the mountains had
robbed us of the breeze, and when daylight succeeded
the false dawn, we dropped our mud hooks a thousand
feet from the beach. On it we could see a little wooden
church and two dwellings, dwarfed to miniature by the
grim pinnacles of rock, crude replicas of the towers of
the Alhambra, slender minarets beside the giant cliffs,
which were clothed with creeping plants in places and
in places bare as the sides of a living volcano.

The fantastic and majestic assemblage of rock shapes
on the shores of Fatu-hiva appeared as if some Her-
culean sculptor with disordered brain and mighty hand
had labored to reproduce the fearful chimeras of his
dreams.

The priest and I, with the supercargo, went ashore

316 WHITE SHADOWS

ill a boat at six o'clock, and reached a beach as smooth
and inviting as that of Atuona. A canoe was waiting
for Pere Olivier; he climbed into it at once, his black
wet robe clinging to him, and called "Adios!" as his
men paddled rapidly for Hanavave, where he was to
say mass and hear confessions.

Lee and I took a road lined with a wall of rocks,
and passing many sorts of trees and plants entered an
enclosure through a gate.

After a considerable walk through a thrifty planta-
tion, we were in front of a European house which
gave signs of comfort and taste. At the head of a
flight of stairs on the broad veranda was a man in gold-
rimmed eye-glasses and a red breechclout. His well-
shaped, bald head and punctilious manner would have
commanded attention in any attire.

I was introduced to Monsieur Fra^ois Grelet, a
Swiss, who had lived here for more than twenty years,
and who during that time had never been farther away
than a few miles. Not even Tahiti had drawn him to
it Since he arrived, at the age of twenty-four years,
he had dwelt contentedly in Oomoa.

After we had chatted for a few moments he invited
me to be his guest. I thought of the Roberta and those
two kinds of cockroaches, the Blatta orientalis and the
Blatta germanica, who raid by night and by day respec-
tively; I looked at Grelet's surroundings, and I ac-
cepted. While the Roberta gathered what copra she
could and flitted, I became a resident of Oomoa until
such time as chance should give me passage to my own
island.

Twenty years before my host had planted the trees

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 317

that embowered his home. With the Swiss farmer's
love of order, he had neglected nothing to make neat,
as nature had made beautiful, his surroundings.

"I learned agriculture and dairying on my father's
farm in Switzerland," said Grelet. "At school I
learned more of their theory, and when I had seen the
gay cities of Europe, I went to the new world to live.
I was first at Pecos City, New Mexico, where I had
several hundred acres of government land. I brought
grape-vines from Fresno, in California, but the water
was insufficient for the sterile soil, and I was forced
to give up my land. From San Francisco I sailed
on the brig Galilee for Tahiti. I have never finished
the journey, for when the brig arrived at Tai-o-hae I
left her and installed myself on the Eunice, a small
trading-schooner, and for a year I remained aboard her,
visiting all the islands of the Marquesas and becoming
so attached to them that I bought land and settled
down here,"

Grelet looked about him and smiled.

"It is n't bad, heint"

It was not. From the little cove where his boat-
house stood a road swept windingly to his house through
a garden of ^luxuriant verdure. Mango and limes,
breadfruit and cocoanut, pomme de Cyfhere, orange and
papaws, banana and alligator-pear, candlenut and
chestnut, mulberry and sandalwood, ton, the bastard
ebony, and rosewood, the rose-apple with purple tas-
seled flowers and delicious fruit, the pistachio and the
badamier, scores of shrubs and bushes and magnificent
tree-ferns, all on a tangled sward of white spider-lilies,
great, sweet-smelling plants, an acre of them, and with

318 WHITE SMAUUWS

them other ferns of many kinds, and mosses, the
nodding taro leaves and the ti, the leaves which the
Fatu-hivans make into girdles and wreaths; all grew
luxuriantly, friendly neighbors to the Swiss, set there
by him or volunteering for service in the generous way
of the tropics.

The lilies, oranges, and pandanus trees yielded food
for the bees, whose thatched homes stood thick on the
hillside above the house, Grelet was a skilled apiarist,
and replenished his melliferous flocks by wild swarms
enticed from the forests. The honey he strained and
bottled, and it was sought of him by messengers from
all the islands.

Orchard and garden beyond the house gave us
Valencia and Mandarin oranges, lemons, ~feis, Guinea
cherries, pineapples, Barbadoes cherries, sugar-cane,
sweet-potatoes, watermelons, cantaloups, Chile peppers,
and pumpkins. Watercress came fresh from the river.

Cows and goats browsed about the garden, but Grelet
banned pigs to a secluded valley to run wild. One of
the cows was twenty-two years old, but daily gave
brimming buckets of milk for our refreshment. Beef
and fish, breadfruit and taro, good bread from Amer-
ican flour, rum, and wine both red and white, with
bowls of milk and green cocoanuts, were always on the
table, a box of cigars, packages of the veritable Scaf er-
lati Superieur tobacco, and the Job papers, and a dozen
pipes. No king could fare more royally than this
Swiss, who during twenty years had never left the for-
gotten little island of Fatu-hiva.

His house, set in this bower of greenery, of flowers
and perfumes, was airy and neat, whitewashed both in-

THE SOUTH SEAS 319

side and out, with a broad veranda painted black. Two
bedrooms, a storeroom in which he sold his merchandise,
and a workroom, sufficed for all his needs. The ve-
randa was living-room and dining-room; raised ten feet
from the earth on breadfruit-tree pillars placed on
stone, it provided a roof for his forge, for his saddle-
and-bridle room, and for the small kitchen.

The ceilings in the house were of wood, but on the
veranda he had cleverly hung a canvas a foot below the
roof. The air circulated above it, bellying it out like
a sail and making the atmosphere cool. Under this
was his dining-table, near a very handsome buffet, both
made by Grelet of the false ebony, for he was a good
carpenter as he was a crack boatsman, farmer, cowboy,
and hunter. Here we sat over pipe and cigarette after
dinner, wine at our elbows, the garden before us, and
discussed many things.

Grelet had innumerable books in French and Ger-
man, all the great authors old and modern; he took the
important reviews of Germany and France, and several
newspapers. He knew much more than I of history
past and present, of the happenings in the great world,
art and music and invention, finances and politics. He
could name the cabinets of Europe, the characters and
records of their members, or discuss the quality of
Caruso's voice as compared with Jean de Reszke's,
though he had heard neither. Twenty-two years ago
he had left everything called civilization, he had never
been out of the Marquesas since that time; he lived in a
lonely valley in which there was no other man of his
tastes and education, and he was content.

"I have everything I want; I grow it or I make it.

320 WHITE SHADOWS

My horses and cattle roam the hills; if I want meat,
beef or goat or pig, I go or I send a man to kill an
animal and bring it to me. Fish are in the river and
the bay; there is honey in the hives; fruit and vegetables
in the garden, wood for my furniture, bark for the
tanning of hides. I cure the leather for saddles or
chair-seats with the bark of the rose-wood. Do you
know why it is called rose- wood? I will show you.
Its bark has the odor of roses when freshly cut. Yes,
I have all that I want. What do I need from the
great cities?"

He tamped down the tobacco in his pipe and puffed
it meditatively.

"A man lives only a little while, Jiein? He should
ask himself what he wants from life. He should look
at the world as it is. These traders want money, buy-
ing and selling and cheating to get it. What is money
compared to life? Their life goes in buying and sell-
ing and cheating. Life is made to be lived pleasantly.
Me, I do what I want to do with mine, and I do it
in a pleasant place."

His pipe went out while he gazed at the garden mur-
murous in the twilight. He knocked out the dottle,
refilled the bowl and lighted the tobacco.

"You should have seen this island when I came.
These natives die too fast. Ah, if I could only get
labor, I could make this valley produce enough for ten
thousand people. I could load the ships with copra and
cotton and coffee."

He was twenty-two years and many thousands of
miles from the great cities of Europe, but he voiced the
wail of the successful man the world over. If he could

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 321

get labor, he could turn it into building his dreams to
reality, into filling his ships with his goods for his profit.
But he had not the labor, for the fruits of a commercial
civilization had killed the islanders who had had their
own dreams, their own ships, and their own pleasures
and profits in life.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Labor in the South Seas; some random thoughts on the "survival of the

fittest"

plantations, and once shipped :
coffee, as good, too, as any in the world. I gather
enough now for my own use, and sell none. I grew
cotton and cocoanuts on a large scale. I raise only a
little now.

"There were hundreds of able-bodied men here then.
I used to huy opium from the Chinese lahor-contractors
and from smugglers, and give it to my working people,
A pill once a day would make the Marquesans hustle.
But the government stopped it. They say that the
book written by the Englishman, Stevenson, did it.
We must find labor elsewhere soon, Chinese, perhaps.
Those two Paumotans brought by Begole are a god-
send to me. I wish some one would bring me a hun-
dred."

The two Paumotan youths, Tennonoku and Kedeko-
lio, lay motionless on the floor of the veranda twenty
feet away. They had been sold to Grelet for a small
sum by Begole, captain of a trading-schooner. In
passing the Paumotan Islands, many hundred miles to
the south, Begole had forgotten to leave at Pukatuhu,
a small atoll, a few bags of flour he had promised to
bring the chief on his next voyage, and the chief, seeing

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 323

the schooner a mile away, had ordered these boys to
swim to it and remind the skipper of his promise.
Begole meanwhile had caught a wind, and the first he
knew of the message was when the boys climbed aboard
the schooner many miles to sea. He did not trouble
to land them, but brought them on to the Marquesas
and sold them to Grelet.

They spoke no Marquesan, and Grelet had difficulty
in making them understand that they must labor for
him, and in enforcing his orders, which they could not
comprehend. There was little copra being made in
the rainy weather, and they lay about the veranda or
squatted on the paepae of the laborers' cookhouse, mak-
ing a fire of coeoanut-husks twice a day to roast their
breadfruit. Their savage hearts were ever in their own
atoll, the home to which the native clings so passion-
ately, and their eyes were dark with hopeless longing*
No doubt they would die soon, as so many do when
exiled, but Grelet's copra crop would profit first.

The dire lack of labor for copra-making, tree-plant-
ing, or any form of profitable activity is lamented by
all white men in these depopulated islands. Average
wages were sixty cents a day, but even a dollar failed
to bring adequate relief. The Marquesan detests la-
bor, which to him has ever been an unprofitable ex-
penditure of life and did not gain in his eyes even when
his toil might enrich white owners of plantations. Since
every man had a piece of land that yielded copra
enough for his simple needs, and breadfruit and fish
were his for the taking, he could not be forced to work
except for the government in payment for taxes.

The white men in the islands, like exploiters of

324 WHITE SHADOWS

weaker races everywhere in the world, were unwilling
to share their profits with the native. They were re-
duced to pleading with or intoxicating the Marquesan
to procure a modicum of labor. They saw fortunes
to be made if they could but whip a multitude of backs
to bending for them, but they either could not or would
not perceive the situation from the native's point of
view*

In America I often heard men who were out of em-
ployment, particularly in bad seasons, in big cities or in
mining camps, argue the right to work. They could
not enforce this alleged natural right, and in their
misery talked of the duty of society or the state in this
direction. But they were obliged to content themselves
with the thin alleviation of soup-kitchens, charity wood-
yards, and other easers of hard times, and with threats
of sabotage or other violence.

Here in the islands, where work is offered to unwill-
ing natives, the employers curse their lack of power to
drive them to the copra forests, the kilns and boats.
Thus, as in highly civilized countries we maintain that
a man has no inherent or legal right to work, in these
islands the employer has no weapon by which to en-
force toil. But had the whites the power to order all
to do their bidding, they would create a system of
peonage as in Mexico,

An acquaintance of mine in these seas took part in,
and profited largely by, the removal to a distant place
of the entire population of an island on which the people
had led the usual life of the Polynesian. He and his
associates sold three hundred men to plantation labor,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 325

which they hated and to which they were unaccustomed*
Within a year two hundred and fifty of them had died
as fast as disease could sap their grief -stricken bodies.
Their former home, which they died longing to see
again, was made a feeding-place for sheep. The mer-
chants reaped a double toll. They were paid well for
delivering the owners of the land to the plantations,
and in addition they got the land.

Now, my acquaintance is a man of university educa-
tion, a quoter of Haeckel and Darwin, with "survival of
the fittest" as his guiding motto since his Jena days.
Says he, quoting a Scotchman:

"Tone it down as you will, the fact remains that
Darwinism regards animals as going up-stairs, in a
struggle for individual ends, often on the corpses of
their fellows, often by a blood-and-iron competition,
often by a strange mixture of blood and cunning, in
which each looks out for himself and extinction besets
the hindmost."

Further says my stern acquaintance, specially when
in his cups :

"The whole system of life-development is that of the
lower providing food for the higher in ever-expanding
circles of organic existence, from protozoea to steers,
from the black African to the educated and employing
man. We build on the ribs of the steers, and on the
backs of the lower grade of human."

Scientific books have taken the place of the Bible
as a quotation-treasury of proof for whatever their
reader most desires to prove. Now I am no scientist
and take, indeed, only the casual interest of the average

326 WHITE SHADOWS

man in the facts and theories of science. But it ap-
pears to me that in his theory of the survival of the
fittest my acquaintance curiously overlooks the ques-
tion of man's own survival as a species.

If we are to base our actions upon this cold-blooded
and inhuman view of the universe, let us consider that
universe as in fact inhuman, and having no concern for
man except as a species of animal very possibly doomed
to extinction, as many other species of animal have
been doomed in the past, unless he proves his fitness to
survive not as an individual, but as a species.

Now man is a gregarious animal; he lives in herds.
The characteristic of the herd is that within it the law
of survival of the fittest almost ceases to operate. The
value of a herd is that its members protect each other
instead of preying upon each other. Nor, in what we
are pleased to call the animal kingdom, do herds of
the same species prey upon each other. They rather
unite for the protection of their weaker members.

So far as I am informed, mankind is the only herd
of which this is not true. Cattle and horses unite in
protecting the young and feeble; sheep huddle together
against cold and wolves; bees and ants work only for
the welfare of the swarm, which is the welfare of all,
This, we are told, is the reason these forms of life have
survived. But ship officers beat sailors because sailors
have no firearms and fear charges of mutiny. Police-
men club prisoners who are poorly dressed. Employees
make profits from the toil of children. Strong nations
prey on weak peoples, and the white man kills the white
man and the bkck and brown and yellow man in mine,
plantation, and forest the world over.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 327

He defends this murder of his own kind by the pat
phrase "survival of the fittest." But man is not a soli-
tary animal, he is a herd animal, and within the herd
nature's definition of fitness does not apply. The herd
is a refuge against the law of tooth and fang. Im-
porting within the herd his own interpretation of that
law, man is destroying the strength of his shelter. By
so much as one man preys upon or debases another man,
he weakens the strength of the man-herd. And for
man it is the herd, not the individual, that must meet
that stern law of "the survival of the fittest" on the
vast impersonal arena of the universe.

"Bully 'Ayes was the man to make the Kanakas
work!" said Lying Bill Pincher. "I used to be on
Penryn Island and that was 'is old 'ang-out. 'Ayes
was a pleasant man to meet. 'E was 'orspitable as a
'ungry shark to a swimming missionary. Bald he was
as a bloomin' crab, stout and smiling.

" 'E 'ad two white wives a-setting in his cabin on the
schooner, and they called it the parlor. Smart wimmen
they was, and saved 'is life for *im more 'n once. 'E 'd
get a couple of chiefs on board by deceiving 'em with
rum, and hold 'era until 'is bloomin' schooner was chock-
a-block with copra. The 'ole island would be working
itself to death to free the chiefs. Then when 'e 'ad
got the copra, 'e'd steal a 'undred or two Kanakas
and sell 'em in South America.

" ? E was smart, and yet ? e got 'is'n. 'Is mate seen
him coining over the side with blood in his eye, and
batted 'im on 'is conch as 'is leg swung over the
schooner's bul'ark. 'Ayes dropped with 'is knife be-
tween 'is teeth and 'is pistols in both 'ands.

328 WHITE SHADOWS

" 'E 'd murdered 'undreds of white and brown and
black men, and 'e was smart, and 'e got away with it.
But *e made the mistake of not having made a friend
of 'is right 'and man."

331

CHAPTER XXIX

The white man who danced in Oomoa Valley; a wild-boar hunt in the
bills; the feast of the triumphant hunters and a dance in honor of
Grelet

GRELET had gone in a whale-boat to Oia, a
dozen miles away, to collect copra, and I was
left with an empty day to fill as I chose. The
house, the garden, and the unexplored recesses of
Oomoa Valley were mine, with whatever they might
afford of entertainment or adventure. Every new day,
wherever spent, is an adventure, but when to the enig-
matic morning is added the zest of a strange place, it
must be a dull man who does not thrill to it.

I began the day by bathing in the river with the year-
old Tamaiti, Grelet's child. Her mother was Hina-
tiaiani, a laughing, beautiful girl of sixteen years, and
the two were cared for by Pae, a woman of forty, ugly
and childless. Hinatiaiani was her adopted daughter,
and Pae had been sorely angered when Grelet, whose
companion she had been for eighteen years, took the
girl. But with the birth of Tamaiti, Pae became re-
conciled, and looked after the welfare of the infant
more than the volatile young mother.

Tamaiti had never had a garment upon her sturdy
small body, and looked a plump cherub as she played
about the veranda, crawling in the puddles when the
rain drove across the floor.

"The infant has never been sick,' 5 Grelet had said.

328 WHITE SHADOWS

"jfe afternoon I was starting for the river to bathe,
V/hen that girl was making herself a bed of cocoanut-
leaves under the house. She said she expected the
baby, as, when she climbed a cocoanut-tree a moment
earlier, she had felt a movement. She would not lie
in a bed, but, like her mother before her, must make her
a nest of cocoanut-leaves/ When I returned from my
bath, Tamaiti was born. She was chopping wood next
day the mother, I mean."

Though scarcely a twelve-month old, the baby swanv
like a frog in the clear water of the river, gurgling at,
intervals scraps of what must have been Marquesan
baby-talk, unintelligible to me, but showing plainly her
enjoyment. Something of European caution, however,
still remained with me and, perhaps unnecessarily, I
picked up the dripping little body and carried her up
the garden path to the house when I returned for break-
fast. Pae received her with no concern, and gave her a
piece of cocoanut to suck. I saw the infant, clutching
it in one hand, toddling and stumbling river-ward again
when after breakfast I set out for a walk up Oomoa
Valley.

Oomoa was far wilder than Atuona, more lonely, with
hundreds of vacant paepaes. Miles of land, once cul-
tivated, had been taken again by the jungle, as estates
lapsed to nature after thousands of years of man. Still,
even far from the houses, delicate trees had preserved
themselves in some mysterious way, and oranges and
limes offered themselves to me in the thickets.

The river that emptied into the bay below Grelet's
plantation flowed down the valley from the heights, and

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 331

beside it ran the trail, a road for half a mile, then a track
growing fainter with every mile, hardly distinguishable
from the tangle of trees and bushes on either side.
Here and there I saw a native house built of bamboo
and matting, very simple shelters with an open space
for a doorway, but wholesome, clean, and, to me, beau-
tiful. I met no one, and most of the huts were on the
other side of the river, but from one nearer the track
a voice called to me, "Kaoha! Manihii, a tata mail
Greeting, stranger, come to us !"

The hut, which, by measurement, was ten feet by
six, held six women and girls, all lying at ease on piles
of mats. It was a rendezvous of gossips, a place for
siestas and scandal. One had seen and hailed me, and
when I came to their paepae, they all filed out and
surrounded me, gently and politely, but curiously. Ob-
viously they had seen few whites.

The six were from thirteen to twenty years of age,
four of them strikingly beautiful, with the grace of
wild animals and the bright, soft eyes of children.
Smiling and eager to be better acquainted with me,
they examined my puttees of spiral wool, my pongee
shirt, and khaki riding-breeches, the heavy seams of
which they felt and discussed. They discovered a tiny
rip, and the eldest insisted that I take off the breeches
while she sewed it,

As this was my one chance to prevent the rip grow-
ing into a gulf that would ultimately swallow the trou-
sers, I permitted the stitch in time, and having nothing
in my pockets for reward, I danced a jig. I cannot
dance a step or sing a note correctly, but in this archi-

832 WHITE SHADOWS

pelago I had won inter-island fame as a dancer of
strange and amusing measures, and a singer of the queer
songs of the whites.

Recalling the cake-walks, sand-sifting, pigeon-wing-
ing, and JiAa-patting of the south, the sailor's horn-
pipe, the sword-dance of the Scotch, and the metro-
politan version of the tango, I did my best, while the
thrilled air of Oomoa Valley echoed these words, yelled
to my fullest lung capacity:

"There was an old soldier and he had a wooden leg,
And he had no tobacco, so tobacco did he beg.
Said 4he soldier to the sailor, "Will you give me a chew?"
Said the sailor to the soldier, "I '11 be damned if I do !
Keep your mind on your number and your finger on your rocks,
And you '11 always have tobacco in your old tobacco box."

Dancing and singing thus on the flat stones of the
paepae of the six Fatu-hiva ladies, I gave back a thou-
sand-fold their aid to my disordered trousers. They
laughed till they fell back on the rocks, they lifted the
ends of their pareus to wipe their eyes, and they de-
manded an encore, which I obligingly gave them in a
song I had kept in mind since boyhood. It was about
a young man who took his girl to a fancy ball, and
afterward to a restaurant, and though he had but fifty
cents and she said she was not hungry, she ate the menu
from raw oysters to pousse-caf e, and turned it over for
more.

It went with a Kerry jig that my grandfather used
to do, and if grandfather, with his rare ability, ever
drew more uproarious applause than I, it must have
been a red-letter day for him, even in Ireland. My
hearers screamed in an agony of delight, and others

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 333

dwelling far .away, or passing laden with breadfruit
and bananas, gathered while I chortled and leaped, and
made "the mountain-side ring with Marquesan bravos.

With difficulty I made my escape, but my success
pursued me. "Menike hdkaf came the cry from each
house I passed, for the news had been called over the
distance, and to the farthest reaches of the valley it
was known that an American, the American* who had
come on the Roberta, with a box that wrote, was danc-
ing along the route.

As in the old days of war or other crisis, the cry had
been raised, and was echoed from all directions, and
irom hut to cocoanut-tree to crag '-the call was heard,
growing fainter and more feeble, dying gradually from
point to point, echoing farther and yet farther in the
distance. This was the ancient telegraph-system of the
islanders, by which an item of information sped in a
moment to the most remote edges of the valley. Un-
wittingly, in my gratitude, I had raised it, and now I
pursued my way in the glare of a pitiless publicity.

I was met almost immediately by a score of men and
women who had left the gathering of fruit or the duties
of the household to greet me. Fafo, the leader, be-
sought me earnestly to accompany them to a neighbor-
ing paepae and dance for them.

He had the finest eyes I have ever seen in a man's
head, dark brown, almond-shaped, large and lustrous,
wells of melancholy. There was something exquisite
about the young man, his lemon-colored skin, his deli-
cate hands and feet, his slender, though strong, body,
and his regular, brilliant teeth. Some Spanish don
had bred him, or some moody Italian with music in his

334 WHITE SHADOWS

soul, for he was a Latin in face and figure. His eyes
had that wistfulness as they sought mine which the
Tahitians have put well in one of their picture-words,
ano-ano'urij "the yearning, sorrowful gaze of a dog
watching his masjer at dinner."

A belated shrinking from renown, however, made me
reject his pleas, and perceiving a pool near at hand,
I softened refusal hy a suggestion that we bathe. The
pool, I learned, was famous in the valley, for one could
swim forty feet in it, and on the other side the hill rose
straight, with banana-trees overhanging the water forty
feet above. We climbed this rocky face and dived into
the water again and again, rejoicing in its coolness and
in that sheer pagan delight of the dive, when in the
air man becomes all animal, freed from every restraint
and denied every safeguard save the strength of his own
muscle and nerve.

We saw at last, on the edge of the bank, one of
Grelet's dogs, whining for attention. He was badly
wounded in two places, blood dripped on the rocks from
open cuts three inches long, and one paw hung helpless,
while with eager cries and beseeching looks he urged us
to avenge him in his private feud with a boar. As-
sured of our interest, he stayed not to be comforted
or cured, but hobbled eagerly up the trail, begging us
with whines to accompany him.

Five men and several other dogs followed the
wounded hound, and I went with them. The Mar-
quesans had war-clubs and long knives like undersized
machetes. Every Islander carries such a knife for cut-
ting underbrush or cocoanut-stems, and usually it is his

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 335

only tool for building native houses, so that he becomes
very expert with it, as the Filipino with his bolo or the
Cuban with his machete.

For several hours we climbed the slopes, until \ye
came upon a narrow trail cut in the side of a cliff, a
path perhaps two feet wide, with sheer wall of rock
above and abrupt precipice below. On this the chief
hunter stationed himself and two men while the others
scouted below. This leader was a man of sixty, tat-
tooed from toes to scalp on one side only, so that he
was queerly parti-colored, and capping this odd figure,
he wore a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles. He mo-
tioned to me to take my place in a niche of the cliff,
where I could stand and sweep the trail with my eyes,
secure from assault. He had given directions to the
others and intended to provide for me a rare sight, and
to gain for himself a trifle of the glory that had been
his as a young man in wars against neighboring valleys.

For an hour we waited "and smoked, hearing from
time to time the clamor of men and dogs in the thickets
below. The common way of hunting boars, said the
chief, was to chase them through the woods and kill them
by throwing tomahawks at them. This method allows
the hunter to have a tree always within a short run,
and about these trees he dodges when pursued, or if
too closely pressed, climbs one. It is dangerous sport,
as only a cool and experienced man can drive a knife
into a vital part of a boar in full career, and no wound
in non-vital parts will cause the desperate beast even
to falter.

Gradually the cries of the men and the barking of

3S6 WHITE SHADOWS

the dogs grew nearer, and suddenly, bursting from the
bushes some distance down the trail, we saw ten bris-
tling hogs. They had been driven upward until they
reached the artificial shelf, and behind them hounds and
hunters cut off all escape*

fc Apau! Aia oe a!" shouted the rear-guard as the
boars took the traiL "Lo! Prepare to strike!"

The three slayers gripped their clubs and braced their
feet. I was above the chief, who was the last of the
trio. Where he planted his feet, the path was most
narrow, so that two could not pass. His knife was in
his paren, which, to leave his legs unhampered, he had
rolled and tucked in until it was no more than a G-
string. His muscles were like the cordage of the faufee
the vine that strangles and his chest like a great
buckler, half blue and half copper.
. ff Peo! Pepo! Huepe! Huope!" yelled the scouts,
in the "tally-ho!" cry of Marquesan, and the boars
struck the trail with hatred hot in their eyes and with
gnashing tusks.

The three slayers were five hundred feet apart. The
first struck at all ten, as singly they rushed past him.
Three he stopped. The second man laid prostrate four.
The three remaining were, naturally, the fittest. They
were huge, hideous, snarling beasts, bared teeth gleam-
ing in a slather of foam, eyes bloodshot and vicious.
The old chief saw them coming; he saw, too, that I had
shrunk to a plaster on the wall while he faced the danger
like a warrior in the spear-test of their old warfare.

"Aia! Aiaf he said to encourage me. His club
of ironwood, its edge sharp and toothed, he grasped
with both hands; he widened his foothold and threw his

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 337

body forward to withstand a shock. He calculated to
an inch the arrival of the first boar, and swung his u*u
on its head with precision. The boar crumpled up and
fell down the hillside. The second he struck as un-
erringly, but the third he chose to kill with his knife.

He laid down the vfu and drew the knife with one
motion, and as the powerful brute rushed at him,
stepped aside in the split second between his gauge of
its position and its leap. His knife was thrust straight
out. It met the boar with perfect and delicate ac-
curacy. The beast fell, quivered a moment, and lay
still.

It was a perfection of butchery, for one slash of those
tusks, ripping the chief's legs, and he would have been
down, crashing over the cliff, and dead. I was almost
in chants of admiration for his nerve and accuracy.

"Ah, if this had been war, and these had been ene-
mies!"

The dead boars were slung on poles, but a half dozen
had to be left on branches of trees for the morrow, and
it was late iii the day when we reached Grelet's house
for the feast.

Pae, the elder woman of the household, received us
joyously. In the master's absence she had become a
different being from the sulky, contrary one I had seen
while he was at home. Usually she and Hinatiaiani,
the mother of the baby, ate their food squatting beside
the cook-house; they rarely came upon the veranda,
never sat upon a chair, and never were asked to our
table. Now they were in complete possession of the
house and Pae was transformed into a jolly soul, her
kinsfolk about her on the veranda and the bottles empty-

388 WHITE SHADOWS

ing fast. She celebrated our arrival with the boars by
bringing out two quarts of crime de menthe and a bottle
of absinthe, so that the mice with the big cat away
played an uncorking air right merrily*

All was now a bustle of preparation for the feast.
While many prepared the earth-oven for the pig, the
head cook made fire in their primitive way, using the
fire-plough of purau-wood braced against a pillar of
the veranda. Meantime the oven was dug, sides and
bottom lined with stones, and sticks piled within it for
the fire. A top layer of stones was placed on the
flames and when it had grown red-hot, the pig was
pulled and hauled over it until the bristles were re-
moved. The carcass was then carried to the river, the
intestines removed, and inside and outside thoroughly
washed in a place where the current was strong.

The oven was made ready for its reception by remov-
ing the upper layer of stones and the fire, and placing
banana-leaves all about the bottom and sides, in which
the pig, his own interior filled with hot stones wrapped
in leaves, was placed, witE native sweet-potatoes and
yams beside him. More leaves covered all, and another
layer of red hot stones. A surface of dirt sealed the
oven.

A young dog was also part of the fare, and was
cooked in the same manner as the pig. The Mar-
quesans are fond of dogs. This particular one had
been brought to this valley from another and was not
on friendly terms with any of his butchers. In fact,
his death was due more to revenge than to hunger for
his flesh. He had bitten the leg of a man who lived
in the upper part of Oomoa, ai^d when this man came

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 339

limping to the banquet, he brought the biter as his con-
tribution.

Those who would turn up their noses at Towser must
hear Captain Cook, who was himself slain and dis-
membered in Hawaii:

"The flesh of the South Sea Dog is a meat not to be
despised. It is next to our English Lamb."

Personally I am willing to let it be next to lamb at
every meal, and I shall always take its neighbor, but
it argues a narrow taste not to concede that the dishes
of our foreign friends may have a relish all their own.
Dog has been a Maori tidbit for thousands of years.
It was introduced into ISTew Zealand from these islands.
The aborigines had a fierce, undomesticated dog, which
they hunted for its flesh. It was a sort of fox,
but disappeared before the Polynesians reached the
islands.

All Polynesians have liked dogs, liked them as pets,
as they do to-day, and liked them as grub. If one asks
how one can pet Fido Monday and eat him Tuesday,
I will reply that we, the highest types of civilization,
pet calves and lambs, chickens and rabbits, and find
them not a whit the less toothsome. The Marquesan
loves his pig as we love our dog, cuddles him, calls him
ford names, believes that he goes to heaven, and never-
theless roasts him for dinner.

The yams, potatoes* breadfruit, and other accom-
paniments of the dog, pig, and chicken were all ready
at six o'clock, when cries of delight summoned us idlers.
The earth had been cleared from the oven, the leaves
removed, and the pig was lifted into the air, cooked
to a turn, succulent, steaming, delicious. The feast

340 WHITE SHADOWS

was spread in a clearing, so that the sun, sinking slowly
in the west, might filter his rays through the lofty trees
and leave us brightened by his presence, but cool in the
shadows. For me a Roman couch of mats was spread,
while the natives squatted in the comfort of men whose
legs are natural.

The women waited upon us, passing all the food in
leaves, in cleanly fashion. Pae herself, though hostess,
could not eat till all the men were satisfied, for the tapu
still holds, though without authority. Knives nor forks
hindered our free onslaught upon the edibles, and there
were cocoanut-shells beside each of us for washing our
hands between courses, a usual custom.

Piahi, the native chestnuts shelled and cooked in
cocoanut-milk, were an appetizer, followed by small fish,
which we ate raw after soaking them in lime juice.
There is no dish that the white man so soon learns to
crave and so long remembers when departed. Some
of the guests did not like the sauce, but took their
small fish by the tail, dripping with salt water, and
ate it as one might eat celery, bones, and all.

With the main course were served dried squid and
porpoise, and fresh flying-fish and bonito and shrimp.
The feast was complete with mangoes, oranges, and
pineapples, also bananas ripened in the expeditious way
of the Marquesas. They bury them in a deep hole
lined with cracked candlenuts and grass and cover
all with earth. In several days and they know the
right time to an hour the bananas are dug up, yellow
and sweet.

Pae furnished a limited quantity of rum for the
fete, and a cocoanut-shell filled with namu was passed

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 341

about. Every one was already enthusiastic, and after
several drinks of the powerful sugar-distillation pipes
were lit and palaver began. I had to tell stories of my
strange country, of the things called cities, large vil-
lages without a river through them, so big that they
held tini tini tim tini mano mano mano mano people,
with single houses in which more people worked than
there were in all the islands. Such a house might be
higher than three or four cocoanut trees stood one on
the other, and no one walked up-stairs, but rode in
boxes lifted by ropes,

"How many men to a rope?'* asked Pae.

The old men told me about their battles, much as at
a reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic the
veterans fight again the Civil war. One man, whose
tattooing striped his body like the blue bands of a con-
vict's suit, said that it was the custom on Fatu-hiva for
the leader or chief on each side to challenge the enemy
champion.

"Our army stood thirty or forty feet away from the
other army," said he, "and our chief stood still while
the other threw his spear. If it struck our chief, at
once the warriors rushed into battle; if it missed, our
chief had the right to go close to the other and thrust
a spear through his heart. The other stood firm and
proud. He smiled with scorn. He looked on the spear
when it was raised, and he did not tremble. But some-
times he was saved by his courage, for our chief after
looking at him with terrible eyes, said, 'O man of heart,
go your way, and never dare again to fight such a great
warrior as IP

"That ended the war. The other chief was ashamed,

342 WHITE SHADOWS

and led his men down to their own valley. But if our
chief had killed him, then there was war; at once we
struck with the u'u and ran forward with our spears.
These battles gave many names to children, names re-
membering the death or wounding of the glorious deeds
of the warriors. To await calmly the spear of the other
chief, the head raised, the eyes never winking, to look
at the spear as at a welcome gift that was what our
chiefs must do. Death was not so terrible, but to leave
one's body in the hands of the foe, to be eaten, to know
that one's skull would be hung in a tree, and one's
bones made into tattoo needles or fish-hooks !
Toomanu!

"We are not the men we were. We do not eat the
'Long Pig' any more, but we have not the courage, the
skill, or the strength. When the spears were thrown,
and each man had but one, then the fight was with the
tiu> hand to hand and eye to eye. That was a fight
of men! The gun is the weapon of cowards. It is
the gun that fights, not the man.

"Our last fight we brought back four bodies. Meat
spoils quickly. We had our feast right here where we
sit now."

Excited barking of the dogs announced the arrival
of Grelet with several men. They had rowed all the
way to Oia and had sailed back, arriving by chance in
time to share the abundance of our feast. After the
twelve-mile pull in the blazing sun and the toilsome
journey back by night this feast was their reward, and
all their pay.

Pae, reduced once more to sullen servitude, poured
the rum, generous portions of it in cocoanut-shells,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 343

which the newcomers emptied as they ate, hastening
soon to join the other guests on the broad veranda,
where late at night a chant began.

Half a dozen men, tattooed from toes to waist and
some to the roots of their hair, sat on a mat on the floor,
all naked except for their pareus, the red and yellow of
which shone in the light of the oil-lamps in brightening
contrast to brown skins and dark blue ink. One was
far gone with fefe, his legs almost as large as those
of an elephant. He was a grotesque in hideous green.
The blue of the candlenut-ink, in bizzare designs upon
body and legs, had turned a scaly greenish hue from
age and kava excesses. Revealed in the yellow light,
he was like a ghastly bronze monstrosity that had known
the weathering of a century.

He was the leader of the chant and, like all the others,
had drunk plenty of Grelet's rum. The pipe was pass-
ing, and Grelet took his pull at it in the circle. The
chant was of the adventures of the day. The hunters
and specially Namu Ou Mio, the slayer of the three
boars, told of the deed of prowess on the cliff-side, while
the others sang of their journey and the sea. Squatting
on the mat, they bent and swayed in pantomine, tell-
ing the tales, lifting their voices in praises of their own
deeds and of the virtues of Grelet.

That thrifty Swiss, in red breech-clout and spectacles,
the lamplight shining on his bald head, sat in the midst
of them, familiar by a score of years with their chants.
Pae filled the pipe and the bowls and joined in the
chorus, while the Paumotan boys, in a shadowy recess,
sipped their rum and rolled their eyes in astonished
appreciation of the first joviality of their lives.

344 WHITE SHADOWS

When the leader began the ancient cannibal chant,
the song of war and of feasting at the High Place, the
tattooed men forgot even the rum. The nights of riot
after return from the battle, the fighting qualities of
their fathers, the cheer of the fires, .the heat of the ovens,
and the baking of the "Long Pig/' and the hours when
the most beautiful girls danced'naked to win the acclaim
of the multitude and to honor their parents; all these
they celebrated. The leader gave the first line in a
dramatic tone, and the others chanted the chorus. Most
of the verses they knew by rote, but there were im-
provisations that brought applause from all.

At midnight the man with the elephantiasis removed
his pareu to free his enormous legs for dancing, and he
and the others, their hands joined, moved ponderously
in a tripping circle before the couch on which I lay.
The chant was now a recital of my merits, the chief of
which was that I was a friend of Grelet, that mighty
man wiser than Iholomoni (Solomon), with more wives
than that great king, and stronger heart to chase the,
wild bulL He steers a whale-boat with a finger, but no
wave can tear the helm from his grasp. Long has he
been in Oomoa, just and brave and generous has he
been, and his rum is the best that is made in the far
island of Tahiti.

So passed the night and the rum, in a pandemonium
of voices, gyrating tattooed bodies* flashes of red and
yellow and blue paneus, rolling eyes, curls of smoke
drifting under the gently moving canvas ceiling, while
from the garden came the scent of innumerable dewy
flowers; and at intervals in the chanting I heard from

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 345

the darkness of the bay the sound of a conch-shell blown
on some wayfaring boat.

I dozed, and wakened to see Grelet asleep. Pae was
still filling the emptied cocoanut-shells, and the swollen
green man postured before me like some horrid figment
of a dream. I roused myself again. Pae had locked
up the song-maker, and all the tattooed men slumbered
where they sat, the Paumotan boys with sunbonnets tied
about their heads lay in their corner, dreaming, perhaps,
of their loved home on Pukaruha. I woke again to find
the garden green and still in the gray morning, and the
veranda vacant.

The Marquesans were all in the river, lying down
among the boulders to cool their aching heads. The
fefe sufferer stood like a slime-covered rock in the
stream. His swollen legs hurt him dreadfully. Rum
is not good for fefe.

"Guddammee !" he said to me in his one attempt at
our cultured language, and put his body deep in a pooL

CHAPTER XXX

A visit to Hanavave; Pere Olivier at home; the story of the last battle
between Hanahouua and Oij told by the sole survivor; the making of
tapa cloth, and the ancient garments of the Marquesans.

GRELET said that the conch I had heard at
night sounding off Oomoa must have b ;n in a
canoe or whale-boat bound for Hanavave, a
valley a dozen miles away over the mountains, but only
an hour or so by sea. It might have brought a message
of interest, or perhaps would be a conveyance to my
own valley, so in mid-forenoon we launched Grelefs
whale-boat for a journey to Hanavave.

Eight men carried the large boat from its shelter to
the water, slung on two short thick poles by loops of
rope through holes in prow and stern. It was as grace-
ful as a swan, floating in the edge of the breakers.
Driving it through the surf was cautious, skilful work,
at which Grelet was a master. Haupupuu, who built
the boat, a young man with the features of Bonaparte
and a blase expression, was at the bow, and three other
Marquesans, with the two Paumotan boys, handled the
oars. There was no wind and they rowed all the way,
spurting often for love of excitement.

We skirted a coast of almost vertical cliffs crowned
by cocoas, the faces of the rock black or covered above
the waterline with vines and plants, green and luxuriant.
Long stretches of white curtains and huge pictures in
curious outlines were painted on the sable cliffs by en- ?
crusted salt. The sea surged in leaping fountains

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 347

through a thousand blow-holes carved from the black
basalt, and the ceaseless wash of the waves had cut the
base of the precipices into paniho, or teeth, as the Mar-
quesans say.

There were half a dozen indentations in the bleak and
rugged coast, each -a little valley guarded by cliffs on
both sides, the natural obstacle to neighborliness that
made enemies of the clans. Inhabitants of plains are
usually friendly. Mountains make feuds.

We passed the valley of Hana Ui, inhabited when
Grelet came, and full of rich cotton-fields, now a waste
with never a soul in it. We passed Eue, Utea, Tetio,
N aif apoto, Hana Puaea and Mata Utuoa, all empty
of the living; graveyards and deserted paepaes. Thou-
sands made merry in them when the missionaries first re-
corded their numbers. Death hung like a cloud over
the desolate wilderness of these valleys, over the stern
and gloomy cliffs, black and forbidding, carved into
monstrous shapes and rimmed with the fantastic patterns
made by the unresting sea.

Near Matu Utuoa was a great natural bridge, under
which the ocean rushed in swirling currents, foam, and
spray. Turning a shoulder of the cliff , we entered the
Bay of Virgins and were confronted with the titanic
architecture of Hanavave, Alps in ruins, once coral
reefs and now thrust up ten thousand feet above the sea.
Fantastic headlands, massive towers, obelisks, pyramids,
and needles were an extravaganza in rock, monstrous
and portentous. Towering structures hewn by water
and wind from the basalt mass of the island rose like
colossi along the entrance to the bay; beyond, a glimpse
of great black battlements framed a huge crater.

848 WHITE SHADOWS

A dangerous bay in the lee wind with a bad holding-
ground. We maneuvered for ten minutes to land, but
the shelving beach of black stone with no rim of sand
proved a puzzle even to Grelet. We reached the stones
again and again, only to be torn away by the racing tide.
At last we all jumped into the surf and swam ashore,
except one man who anchored the whale-boat before fol-
lowing us.

The canoe that had sounded the conch off Oomoa was
lying on the shale, and those who had come in it were on
the stones cooking breadfruit. The village, half a
dozen rude straw shacks, stretched along a rocky stream.
Beyond it, in a few acres enclosed by a fence, were a
tuw church, two wretched woodeif cabins, a tumbling
fafosk, five or six old men and women squatting on the
ground amid a flock of dogs and cats. This was the
Catholic mission, tumbledown and decayed, unpainted
for years, overgrown by weeds, marshy and muddy,
passing to oblivion like the race to which it ministered.

Grelet and I found Pere Olivier sweeping out the
church, cheerful, humming a cradle-song of the French
peasants. He was glad to see us, though my companion
was avowedly a pagan. Dwelling alone here with his
dying charges, the good priest could not but feel a com-
mon bond with any white man, whoever he might be.

The kiosk, to which he took us, proved to be Pere
Olivier's eating-place, dingy, tottering, and poverty-
stricken, furnished with a few cracked and broken
dishes and rusty knives and forks, the equipment of a
miner or sheep-herder. Pere Olivier apologized for the
meager fare, but we did well enough, with soup and a
tin of boiled beef, breadfruit, and few. The soup was

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 349

of a red vegetable, not appetizing, and I could not make
out th<, native name for it, hue ardhi, until Grelet cried,
"Ah, j'ai trouv6 le mot anglais! Ponkeen, ponkeenl"
It was a red pumpkin.

"La soupe maigre de missiondre" murmured the
priest.

I led the talk to the work of the mission.

"We have been here thirty-five years," said Pere
Olivier, "and I, thirty. Our order first tried to estab-
lish a church at Oomoa, but failed. You have seen there
a stone foundation that supports the wild vanilla vines?
Frere Fesal built that, with a Raratonga islander who
was a good mason. The two cut the stones and shaped
them. The valley cf Oomoa was drunk. Rum was
everywhere, the palm namu was being made all the timi,
and few people were ever sober. There was a Hawaiian
Protestant missionary there, and he was not good friends
with Frexe Fesal. There was no French authority at
Oomoa, and the strongest man was the law. The
whalers were worse than the natives, and hated the mis-
sionaries. One day when the valley was crazed, a native
killed the Raratonga man. You will find the murderer
living on Tahuata now. Frere Fesal buried his assist-
ant, and fled here.

"That date was about the last Hanavave suffered
from cannibalism and extreme sorcery. The taua, the
pagan priest, was still powerful, however, and his gods
demanded victims. The men here conspired with the
men of Hanahouua to descend on Oi, a little village by
the sea between here and Oomoa. They had guns of a
sort, for the whalers had brought old and rusty guns
to trade with the Marquesans for wood, fruit, and fish.

350 WHITE SHADOWS

Frere Fesal learned of the conspiracy, but the men were
drinking rum, and he was helpless. The warriors went
stealthily over the mountains and at night lowered them-
selves from the cliffs with ropes made of the fau. There
were only thirty people left in Oi, and the enemy came
upon them in the dark like the wolf. Only one man es-
caped There he is now, entering the mission. We
will ask him to tell the story."

He stood in the rickety doorway and called, "Tutaiei,
come here!" An old and withered man approached,
one-eyed, the wrinkles of his face and body abscurii$>
the blue patterns of tattooing, a shrunken, but hideous,
scar making a hairless patch on one side of his head?

"I was on the beach pulling up my canoe and taking
out the fish I had speared," said this wreck of a man.
"Half the night was spent, and every one was asleep
except me. We were a little company, for they had
killed and eaten most of us, and others had died of the
white man's curse. In the night I heard the cries of
the Hanavave and Hanahouua men who had lowered
themselves down, the precipice and were using their war-
clubs on the sleeping.

"I was one man. I could do nothing but die, and I
was full of life. In the darkness I smashed with a rock
all the canoes on the beach save mine. In my ears were
the groans of the dying, and the war-cries. I saw the
torches coming. I put the fish back in my canoe, and
pushed out.

"They were but a moment late, for I have a hole in
my head into which they shot a nail, and I have this
crack in my head upon which they flung a stone. They
could not follow me, for there were no canoes left. I

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 351

paddled to Oomoa after a day, during which I did what
I have no memory of ."

"They had guns?" I asked him.

"They had a few guns, but they used in them nails or
stones, having no balls of metal. Their slings were
worse. I could sling a stone as big as a mango and
kill a man, striking him fair on the head, at the distance
those guns would shoot. We made our slings of the
bark of the cocoanut-tree, and the stones, polished by
riibbing against each other, we carried in a net about the
v aist,"

"But if that stone broke your head, why did you not
die?"

, "A tatihi fixed my head. The nail in my leg he took
out with a loop of hair, and cured the wound*"

"Did you not lie in wait for those murderers?"

Tutaiei hemmed and cast down his eye.

"The French came then with soldiers and made it so
that if I killed any one, they killed me ; the law, they call
it. They did nothing to those warriors because the
deed was done before the French came. I waited and
thought* I bought a gun from a whaler. But the time
never came.

"All my people had died at their hands. Six heads
they carried back to feast on the brains. They ate the
brains of my wife. I kept the names of those that I
should kill. There was Kiihakia, who slew Moariniu,
the blind man; Nakahania, who killed Hakaie, husband
of Tepeiu; Niana, who cut off the head of Tahukea, who
was their daughter and my woman; Veatetau should die
for Tahiahokaani, who was young and beautiful, who
was the sister of my woman. I waited too long, for

352 WHITE SHADOWS

time took them all, and I alone survive of the people of
Oi, or of those who killed them/'

"The vendetta between valleys called umuhuke, or
the Vengeance of the Oven, thus wiped out the peo-
ple of Oi," commented Pere Olivier. "The skulls were
kept in banian-trees, or in the houses. Frexe Fesal
started the mission here and built that little church.
There were plenty of people to work among. But now,
after thirty years I have been here, they are nearly fin-
ished. They have no courage to go on, that is all.
C'est un pays sans I'avenir. The family of the dying
never weep. They gather to eat the feast of the dead,
and the crying is a rite, no more. These people are
tired of Efe." J

It was Stevenson who though that "the ending of thl
most healthful, if not the most humane, of field sports
hedge warfare " had much to do with depopulation.
Either horn of the dilemma is dangerous to touch. It
is unthinkable, perhaps, that white conquerors should
have allowed the Marquesans to follow their own 'cus-
toms of warfare. But changes in the customs of every
race must come from within that race or they Will-iie-
stroy it. The essence of life is freedom. *sf

Any one who has read their past and knows them now
must admit that the Marquesans have .not been im-
proved in morality by their contact with the whites.
Alien customs have been forced upon them. And they
are dying for lack of expression, nationally and indi-
vidually. Disease, of course, is the weapon that kills
them, but it finds its victims unguarded by hope or de-
sire to live, willing to meet death half way, the grave a
haven.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 353

In the old days this island of Fatu-hiva was the art
center of the Marquesas. The fame of its tattooers,
carvers in wood and stone, makers of canoes, paddles,
and war-clubs, had resounded through the archipelago
for centuries. Now it is one of the few places where
even a feeble survival of those industries give the new-
comers a glimpse of their methods and ideals now sink-
ing, like their originators, in the mire of wretchedness.

Outside the mission gates, in the edge of the jungle,
Pere Olivier and I came upon two old women making
tapa cloth. Shrunken with age, toothless, decrepit,
their only covering the ragged and faded pareus that
spoke of poverty, they sat in the shade of a banian-tree,
Seating the fibrous inner bark of the breadfruit-tree.
Over the hollow log that resounded with the blows of
their wooden mallets the cloth moved slowly, doubling
on the ground into a heap of silken texture, firm, thin,
and soft.

This paper-cloth was once made throughout all the
South Sea Islands. Breadfruit, banian, mulberry, and
other barks furnished the fiber. The outer rough bark
w,.s scraped off with a shell, and the inner rind slightly
bea^n and allowed to ferment. It was then beaten
over a tree-trunk with mallets of iron-wood about
eighteen inches long, grooved coarsely on one side and
more finely on the other. The fibers were so closely
interwoven by this beating that in the finished cloth
one could not guess the process of making. When
finished, the fabric was bleached in the sun to a dazzling
white, and from it the Marquesans of old wrought won-
drous garments.

For their caps they made remarkably fine textures,

354 WHITE SHADOWS

open-meshed, filmy as gauze, which confined their
abundant black hair, and to which were added flowers,
either natural or beautifully preserved in wax. Their
principal garment, the cahu, was a long and flowing
piece of the paper-cloth, of firmer texture, dyed in bril-
liant colors, or of white adorned with tasteful patterns.
This hung from the shoulders, where it was knotted on
one shoulder, leaving one, arm and part of the breast
exposed. Much individual taste was expressed in the
wearing of this garment; sometimes the knot was on one
shoulder, sometimes on the other, or it might be brought
low on the chest, leaving the shoulders and arms bare, or
thrown behind to expose the charms of a well-formed
back or a slender waist. Beneath it they wore a pareuj
which passed twice around the waist and hung to the
calves of the legs.

Clean and neat as these garments always were, shin-
ing in the sun, leaving the body free to know the joys
of sun and air and swift, easy motion, it would be diffi-
cult to imagine a more graceful, beautiful, modest, and
comfortable manner of dressing.

For dyeing these garments in all the hues that fancy
dictated, the women used the juices of herb and tree.
Candlenut-bark gave a rich chocolate hue; scarlet was
obtained from the wafo'-berries mixed with the leaves of
the tow. Yellow came from the inner bark of the root
of the morinda citrifolia. Hibiscus flowers or delicate
ferns were dipped in these colors and impressed on the
tapas in elegant designs.

The garments were virtually indestructible. Did a
dress need repairing, the edges of the rent were mois-
tened and beaten together, or a handful of fiber was

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 355

beaten in as a patch. Often for fishermen the tapas
were made water-proof by added thicknesses and the
employment of gums, and waterproof cloth for wrap-
pings was made thick and impervious to rain as the oil-
cloth it resembled.

Hardly one of these garments survives in the Mar-
quesas to-day. They have been driven out by the gaudy
prints of Germany and England brought by the traders,
and by the ideas of dress which the missionaries imported
together with the barrels of hideous night-gown gar-
ments contributed by worthy ladies of American vil-
lages.

The disappearance of these native garments brought
two things, idleness and the rapid spread of tuberculosis.
The tapa cloth could not be worn in the water or the
rain, as it disintegrated. Marquesans therefore left
their robes in the house when they went abroad in stormy
weather or bathed in the sea. But in their new calicos
and ginghams they walked in the rain, bathed in the
rivers, and returned to sleep huddled in the wet folds,
ignorant of the danger.

As the tapa disappeared, so did the beautiful carv-
ings of canoes and paddles and clubs, superseded by the
cheaper, machine-made articles of the whites. Little
was left to occupy the hands or minds of the islanders,
who, their old merrymakings stopped, their wars for-
bidden, their industry taken from them, could only sit
on their paepaes yawning like children in jail and wait-
ing for the death that soon came.

The Marquesans never made a pot. They had clay
in their soil, as Gauguin proved by using it for his model-
ing, but they had no need of pottery, using exclusively

356 WHITE SHADOWS

the gourds from the vines, wooden vessels hollowed out,
and temporary cups of leaves.

This absence of pottery is another proof of the
lengthy isolation of the islands 1 . The Tongans had
earthen ware which they learned to make from the
Pijians, but the Polynesians had left the mainland be-
fore the beginning of this art. Thus they remained a
people who were, despite their startling advances in
many lines, the least encumbered by useful inventions of
any race in the world.

Until hardly more than a hundred years ago the na
tives were like our forefathers who lived millenniums ago
in Europe. But being in a gentler climate, they were
gentler, happier, merrier, and far cleaner. One can
hardly dwell in a spirit of filial devotion upon the rela-
tion of our forefathers to soap and water, but these Mar-
quesans bathed several times daily in dulcet streams and
found soap and emollients to hand.

It was curious to me to reflect, while Pere Olivier and
I stood watching the two aged crones beating out the
tapa cloth, upon what slender chance hung the differ-
ence between us. Far in the remote mists of time, when
a tribe set out upon its wanderings from the home land,
one man, perhaps, hesitated, dimly felt the dangers and
uncertainties before it, weighed the advantages of re-
maining behind, and did not go. Had he gone, I or
any one of Caucasian blood in the world to-day, might
have been a Marquesan.

It would be interesting, I thought, to consider what
the hundred thousand years that have passed since that
day have given us of joy, of wealth of mind and soul
and body, of real value in customs and manners and at-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 35T

titude toward life, compared to what would have been
our portion in the islands of the South Seas before his
white cousin fell upon the Marquesan.

CHAPTER XXXI

Fishing in Hanavave; a deep-sea battle with a shark; Red Chicken shows
how to tie ropes to shark's tails; night-fishing for dolphins, and the
monster sword-fish that overturned the canoe; the native doctor dresses
Red Chicken's wounds and discourses on medicine.

GRELET returned to Oomoa in the whale-boat,
but I remained in Hanavave for the fishing.
My presence had stimulated the waning in-
terest of the few remaining Marquesans, and the hand-
ful of young men and women went with me often to
the sea outside the Bay of Virgins, where we lay in the
blazing sunshine having great sport with spear or hook
and line.

We speared a dozen kinds of fish, specially the cuttle-
fish and sunfish, the latter more for fun and practice
than food. They are huge masses, these pig-like, tail-
less clowns among the graceful families of the ocean,
with their small mouths and clumsy-looking bodies, but
they made a fine target at which to launch harpoon or
spear from the dancing bow of a canoe. Keeping one's
balance is the finest art of the Marquesan fisherman, and
he will stand firm while the boat rises and falls, rolls
and pitches, his body swaying and balancing with the
nice adjustment that is second nature to him. It is an
art that should be learned in childhood. Many were
the splashes into the salt sea that fell to my lot as I
practised it, one moment standing alert with poised
spear in the sunlight, the next overwhelmed with the
green water, and striking out on the surface again amid

358

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 359

the joyous, umidiculing laughter of my merry com-
panions.

Wearying of the spear, we trolled for swordfish with
hook and line, or used the baitless hook to entice the
sportful albieore, or dolphin, whose curving black bodies
splashed the sea about us. A piece of mother-of-pearl
about six inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide
was the lure for him. Carefully cut an.d polished to re-
semble the body of a fish, there was attached to it on the
concave side a barb of shell or bone about an inch or an
inch and a half in length, fastened by faufee fiber, with
a few hog's bristles inserted. The line was driven
through the hole where the barb was fastened and, being
braided along the inner side of the pearl shank, was tied
again at the top, forming a chord to the arch. Thus
when the beguiled dolphin took the hook and strained
the line, he secured himself more firmly on the barb.

This is the best fish-hook, as it is perhaps the oldest,
ever invented, and I have found it in many parts of the
South Seas, but never more artfully made than here on
Hanavave. It needs no bait, and is a fascinating sight
for the big fish, who hardly ever discover the fraud until
too late.

The line was attached to a bamboo cane about fifteen
feet long, and standing in the stern of the canoe, I
handled this rod, allowing the hook to touch the water,
but not to sink. Behind me my companions, in their
red and yellow pareus, pushed the boat through the
water with gentle strokes of their oars. When I saw a
fish approaching, they became active, the canoe raced
across the sparkling sea, and the hook, as it skimmed
along the surf ace, looked for all the world like a flying

360 WHITE SHADOWS

fish, the bristles simulating the tail. Soon the hasten-
ing dolphin fell upon it, and then became the tug-of-war,
bamboo pole straining and bending, the line now taut,
now relaxing, as the fish lunged, and the paddlers watch-
ing with cries of excitement until he was hauled over
the side, wet and flopping, a feast for half a dozen.

One never-to-be-forgotten afternoon we ran unex-
pectedly upon a whole school of dolphins a few miles
outside the bay, and before the sun sank I had brought
from the sea twenty-six large fish. Some of these were
magnificent food-fish, weighing 150 to 200 pounds.
We had to send for two canoes to help bring in this
miraculous draught, and all the population of the valley
rejoiced in the supply of fresh and appetizing food.

The Marquesan methods of fishing are not so varied
to-day as when their valleys were filled with a happy
people delighting in all forms of exercise and prowess
and needing the fish to supplement a scanty diet. For
many weeks before I came, they said, no man had gone
fishing. There were so few natives that the trees sup-
plied them all with enough to eat, and the melancholy
Marquesan preferred to sit and meditate upon his
paepae rather than to fish, except when appetite de-
manded it. There is a Polynesian word that means
"hungry for fish," iand to-day it is only when this word
rises to their tongues or thoughts that they go eagerly
to the sea or to the tooth-like base of the cliffs.

Often we took large quantities of fish among these
caves and rocks by capturing them in bags, using a
wooden fan as a weapon. The sport called for a cool
head, marvelous lungs, and skill. It was extremely
dangerous, as the sharks were numerous where fish were

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 361

plentiful, and the angler must needs be under the water,
in the shark's own domain.

The best hand and head for this sport in all Hanavave
was a girl, Kikaaki, a name which means Miss Impossi-
bility. She was not handsome, save with the beauty of
youth and abounding health, but her wide mouth and
bright eyes were intelligent and laughter-loving.

Starting early in the morning, we would go to the
edge of the bay, where the coral rises from the ocean
floor in fantastic shapes and builds strange grottoes and
cells at the feet of the basalt rocks. While I held the
canoe, Miss Impossibility would remove her shapeless
calico wrapper, and attired only in scarlet pareu, her hair
piled high on her head and tied with the white filet of the
cocoanut-palm, she would go overboard in one curving
dive, a dozen feet or more beneath the sea.

When the water was quiet and shadowed by the cliffs,
I could see her through its green translucence, swim-
ming to the coral lairs of the fish that gleamed in the
reflected, penetrating sunlight. Walking on the sandy
bottom, a hand net of straw in one hand, and a stick
shaped like a fan in the other, she would cover a crevice
with the net and with the fan urge the fish into it.

Foolish as was their conduct, the fish appeared to be
deceived by the lure, or made helpless by fear, for they
streamed into the receptacle as Miss Impossibility beat
the water or the coral. She would have seemed to me
well named had I never seen her at the sport.

She would usually stay beneath the water a couple of
minutes, rising with her catch to rest for a moment or
two with her hand on the edge of the boat, breathing
deeply, before she went down again. Losing sight of

362 WHITE SHADOWS

her among the under-water caves one day, I waited for
what seemed an eternity, I cannot say how long she
was gone, for as the time lengthened seconds hecame
minutes and hours, while I was torn between diving
after her and remaining ready for emergency in the
boat. When at last she came to the surface, she was
nearly dead with exhaustion, and I had to lift her into
the canoe. She said her hair had been caught in the
branching coral, and that she had been barely able to
wrench it free before her strength was gone.

I went down with her several times, but could not
master the art of entrapping the fish, and was overcome
with fear when I had entered one of the dark caves and
heard a terrible splashing nearby, as if a shark had
struck the coral in attempting to enter my hazardous
refuge.

Even Miss Impossibility had not the courage to face
a shark; yet every time she dived she risked meeting one.
Red Chicken had killed one at this very spot a few
weeks earlier. The danger even to a man armed with a
knife was that the shark would obstruct from a cave, or
come upon him suddenly from behind.

Often we had with us in the fishing a Paumotan, Pas-
cual, the pilot of the ship Zelee, who was in Hanavave
visiting a relative. He was the very highest physical
and mental type of the Paumotan, a honey-comb of
good-nature, a well of laughter, and a seaman beyond
compare. To be a pilot in the Isles of the Labyrinth
demands many strong qualities, but to be the pilot of
the only warship in this sea was the very summit of
pilotry. He had an accurate knowledge of forty har-
bors -and anchorages, and spoke English fluently,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 363

French, Paumotan, Tahitian, Marquesan, and other
Polynesian tongues. From boyhood until he took up
pilotage he was a diver in the lagoons for shell and in
harbors for the repair of ships.

"I have killed many sharks," he said, "and have all
but fed them more than once* I had gone one morn-
ing a hundred feet. The water is always colder below
the surface, and I shivered as I pulled at a pair of big
shells under a ledge. It was dark in the cavern, and I
was both busy and cold, so that as I stooped I did not
see a shark that came from behind, until he plumped
into my spine.

"I turned as he made his reverse to bite me, and
passed under him, out to better light. I knew I had but
a second or two to fight. I seized his tail quickly, and
as he swept around to free himself I had time to draw
the knife from my pareu and stab him. He passed
over me again, and this time his teeth entered my shoul-
der, here " He opened his shirt and showed me a
long, livid scar, serrated* the hall-mark of a fighter of
mako.

"But by fortune you may be sure I called on God
I got my knife home again, and sprang up for the air,
feeling him in the water behind me. Twice I drove the
blade into him on the way, for he would not let me go.
My friend in the canoe, who saw the struggle, jumped
down to my aid, and being fresh from the air, he cut that
devil to pieces. I was not too strong when I reached
the outrigger and hung my weight upon it. We ate the
liver of that mako, and damned him as we ate* I had
fought him from the ledge upward at least eighty feet of
the hundred."

864 WHITE SHADOWS

"Auef* said Red Chicken, hearing me exclaim at the
tale. "You have never seen a man fight the mafco?
Epo! To-morrow we shall show you."

On the following day when the sun was shining
"brightly, several of us went in a canoe to a place be-
neath the cliffs haunted by the sharks, and there pre-
pared to snare one. A rope of hibiscus was made fast
to a jagged crag, and a noose at the other end was held
by Red Chicken, who stood on the edge of a great
boulder eagerly watching while others strewed pig's en-
trails in the water to entice a victim from the dark caves.

At length a long gray shape slid from the shadows
and wavered below our feet. Instantly Red Chicken
slipped from the rock, slid noiselessly beneath the water,
and slipped the noose over the shark's tail before it
knew that he was nearby. The others, whose hands
were on the rope, tightened it on the instant, and with a
yell of triumph hauled the lashing, fighting demon upon
the rocks, where he struggled gasping until he died.

There was still another way of catching sharks, Red
Chicken said, and being now excited with the sport and
eager to show his skill, he insisted upon displaying it
for my benefit, though I, who find small pleasure in
vicarious danger, would have dissuaded him. For this
exploit we must row to the coral caves, where the man-
eating fish stay often lying lazily in the grottoes, only
their heads protruding into the sun-lit water.

Here we maneuvered until the long, evil-looking
snout was seen; then Red Chicken went quietly over the
side of the canoe, descended beside the shark and tapped
him sharply on the head. The fish turned swiftly to see
what teased him, and in the same split-second of time,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 365

over his fluke went the noose, and Red Chicken was up
and away, while his companions on a nearhy cliff pulled
in the rope and killed the shark with spears in shallow
water* Red Chicken said that he had learned this art
from a Samoan, whose people were cleverer killers of
sharks than the M'arquesans. It could be done only
when the shark was full-fed, satisfied, and lazy.

I had seen the impossible, hut I was to hear a thing
positively incredible. While Red Chicken sat breath-
ing deeply in the canoe, filled with pride at my praises,
and the others were contriving means of carrying home
the shark meat, I observed a number of fish swimming
around and through the coral caves, and jumped to the
conclusion that from their presence Red Chicken had
deduced the well-filled stomachs and thoroughly satis-
fied appetite of the shark. Red Chicken replied, how-
ever, that they were a fish never eaten by sharks, and
offered an explanation to which I listened politely, but
with absolute unbelief. Imagine with what surprise I
found Red Chicken's tale repeated in a book that I read
some time later when I had returned to libraries.

There is a fish, the Diodon antennatus, that gets the better
of the shark in a curious manner. He can blow himself up by
taking in air and water, until he becomes a bloated wretch in-
stead of the fairly decent thing he is in his normal moments.
He can bite, he can make a noise with his jaws, and can eject
water from his mouth to some distance* Besides all this, he
erects papillae on his skin like thorns, and secretes in the skin
of his belly a carmine fluid that makes a permanent stain.
Despite all these defences, if the shark is fool enough to heei
no warning and to eat Diodon, the latter puffs himself up and
eats his way clean through the shark to liberty, leaving the
shark riddled and leaky, and, indeed, dead*

3t >6 WHITE SHADOWS

Should this still be doubted, my new authority is
Charles Darwin.

After his display of skill and daring and, as I
thought, vivid imagination Red Chicken became my
special friend and guide, and on one occasion it was our
being together, perhaps, saved his life, and afforded me
one of the most thrilling moments of my own.

He and I had gone in a canoe after nightfall to spear
fish outside the Bay of Virgins. Night fishing has its
attractions in these tropics, if only for the freedom from
severe heat, the glory of the moonlight or starlight, and
the waking dreams that come to one upon the sea, when
the canoe rests tranquil, the torch blazes, and the fish
swim to meet the harpoon. The night was moonless,
but the sea was covered with phosphorescence, some-
times a glittering expanse of light, and again black as
velvet except where our canoe moved gently through a
soft and glamorous surface of sparkling jewels. A
night for a lover, a lady, and a lute.

Our torch of cocoanut-husks and reeds, seven feet
high, was fixed at the prow, so that it could be lifted up
when needed to attract the fish or better to light the
canoe. Red Chicken, in a scarlet parev, fastened tightly
about his loins, stood at the prow when we had reached
his favorite spot off a point of land, while I, with a
paddle, noiselessly kept the canoe as stationary as pos-
sible.

Light is a lure for many creatures of land and sea and
sky. The moth and the bat whirl about a flame; the
sea-bird dashes its body against the bright glass of the
lonely tower; wild deer come to see what has disturbed
the dark of the forest, and fish of different kinds leap at

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 367

a torch. Red Chicken put a match to ours when we
were all in readiness. The brilliant gleam cleft the
darkness and sent across the blackness of the water a
beam that was a challenge to the curiosity of the dozing
fish. They hastened toward us, and Red Chicken made
meat of those who came within the radius of his harpoon,
so that within an hour or two our canoe was heaped with
half a dozen kinds.

Far off in the path of the flambeau rays I saw the
swordfish leaping as they pursued small fish or gamboled
for sheer joy in the luminous air. They seemed to be in
pairs. I watched them lazily, with academic interest in
their movements, until suddenly one rose a hundred feet
away, and in his idle caper in the air I saw a bulk so
immense and a sword of such amazing size that the
thought of danger struck me dumb.

He was twenty-five feet in length, and had a dorsal
fin that stood up like the sail of a small boat* But even
these dimensions cannot convey the feeling of alarm
his presence gave me. His next leap brought him
within forty feet of us. I recalled a score of accidents I
had seen, read, and heard of; fishermen stabbed, boats
rent, steel-clad ships pierced through and through.

Red Chicken held the torch to observe him better,
and shouted:

"Apau! Look out! Paddle fast away!"

I needed no urging. I dug into the glowing water
madly, and the sound of my paddle on the side of the
canoe might have been heard half a mile away. It
served no purpose. Suddenly half a dozen of the
swordfish began jumping about us, as if stirred to anger
by our torch* I called to Red Chicken to extinguish it.

368 WHITE SHADOWS

He had seized it to obey when I heard a splash and
the canoe received a terrific shock. A tremendous bulk
fell upon it. With a sudden swing I was hurled into
the air and fell twenty feet away. In the water I heard
a swish, and glimpsed the giant espadon as he leaped
again.

I was unhurt, but feared for Red Chicken. He had
cried out as the canoe went under, but I found him by
the outrigger, trying to right the craft. Together we
succeeded, and when I had ousted some of the water,
Red Chicken crawled in.

"Papaoufaa! I am wounded slightly," he said, as I
assisted him. "The Spear of the Sea has thrust me
through."

The torch was lost, but I felt a big hole in the calf
of his right leg. Blood was pouring from the wound.
I made a tourniquet of a strip of my pareu and, with a
small harpoon, twisted it until the flow of blood was
stopped. Then, guided by him, I paddled as fast as I
could to the beach, on which there was little trouble in
landing as the bay was smooth.

Red Chicken did not utter a complaint from the mo-
ment of his first outcry, and when I roused others and he
was carried to his house, he took the pipe handed him
and smoked quietly.

"The Aavehie was against him," said an old man.
Aavehie is the god of fishermen, who was always propi-
tiated by intending anglers in the polytheistic days, and
who still had power.

There was no white doctor on the island, nor had
there been one for many years. There was nothing to

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 369

do but call the tatiki, or native doctor, an aged and
shriveled man whose whole body was an intricate pat-
tern of tattooing and wrinkles. He came at once, and
with his claw-like hands cleverly drew together the edges
of Red Chicken's wound and gummed them in place
with the juice of the ape, a bulbous plant like the edible
taro. Red Chicken must have suffered keenly, for the
ape juice is exceedingly caustic, but he made no protest,
continuing to puff the pipe. Over the wound the tatihi
applied a leaf, and bound the whole very carefully with
a bandage of tapa cloth folded in surgical f ashion.

About the mat on which Red Chicken lay the elders
of the village congregated in the morning to discuss the
accident and tell tales while the pipe circulated. One
had seen his friend pierced through the chest by a sword-
fish and instantly killed. Numerous incidents of their
canoes being sunk by these savage Spears of the Sea
were recited by the wise men who, with no books to
bother them or written records to dull their memories,
preserved the most minute recollections of important
events of the past.

For my part, on the subject of the demoniacal work
of the swordfish, I regaled them with accounts of dam-
age wrought to big ships; of how a bony sword had
penetrated the hull of the Fortune, of Plymouth, cut-
ting through copper, an inch of under-sheathing, a three-
inch plank of hard wood, twelve inches of solid, white-
oak timber, two and a half inches of hard oak ceiling,
and the head of an oil cask; of the sloop Morning Star,
which had to be convoyed to port with a leak through a
hole in eight and a half inches of white oak; of the

370 WHITE SHADOWS

United States Fish Commission sloop, Bed Hot,
rammed and sunk; of the British dreadnaught, which
was pumped to Colombo where the leak made by the fish
was found, and 15,000 francs insurance paid.

"Our fathers never went fishing until they had im-
plored the favor of the gods," said Red Chicken. "I am
a Catholic, but it may be the sea is so old, older than
Christ, that the devils there obey the old gods we used
to worship. If that largest Spear of the Sea that we
saw had attacked me or our boat, he would have killed
us and sunk the canoe, for he was four fathoms long,
and his weapon was as tall as I am."

The tatihi nodded his head gravely. His soul was
still in the keeping of the gods of his fathers, and- he
saw in Red Chicken's wound the vengeance of the un-
appeased Aavehie.

I was amazed to find that Red Chicken had no fever,
and was recovering rapidly. Without modern medicine
or knowledge of it, the tatihi had healed the sufferer,
and I drew him on to talk of his skill. v

His surgical knowledge was excellent; he knew the
location of the vital organs quite accurately from fre-
quent cutting up of bodies for eating. He had treated
successfully broken bones, spear-wounds through the
body, holes knocked in skulls by the vicious, egg-sized
sling-stones. If the skull was merely cracked, with no
smashing of the bone, he drilled holes at the end of each
crack to prevent further cleavage and, replacing the
skin he had folded back, bound the head with cooling
leaves and left nature to cure the break. If there was
pressure on the brain or a part of the skull was in bits,
his custom was to remove all these and, trimming the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 371'

edges of the hole in the brainpan, to fit over it a neat
disk of cocoanut-shell, return the scalp, and nurse the
patient to health.

He had known of cases when injured brain matter
was replaced with pig-brains, but admitted that the pa-
tient in such cases became first violently angry and then
died. Lancing boils and abscesses with thorns had been
his former habit, but he favored a nail for the purpose
nowadays.

Fearing lest fever should attack Red Chicken, he
had prepared a decoction from the hollow joints of the
bamboo, which he administered in frequent doses from a
eocoanut-shell. It was milk-white, and became trans-
lucent in water, like that beautiful variety of opal, the
hydrophane. There was a legend, said the tatihi, that
the knowledge of this medicine had been gleaned from
a dark man who had come on a ship many years before,
and with this clue I recognized it as tabasheer, a febri-
fuge long known in India,

A fire had been built outside the straw hovel in which
Red Chicken lay, and stones were heating in it, so that
if milder medicine did not avail the patient might be
laid on a pile of blazing stones covered with protecting
leaves, and swathed in cloths until perspiration con-
quered fever. The patient would then be rushed to the
sea or river and plunged into cold water.

But this procedure was not necessary. Red Chicken
got well rapidly, and in a few days was walking about
as usual, though with a thoughtful look in his eye that
promised a soul-struggle with Pere Olivier, whose new
gods had not protected the fisherman against the gods
of the sea.

CHAPTER XXXII

A journey over the roof of the world to Oomoa; an encounter with a wild
woman of the hills.

PERE OLIVIER tried to dissuade me from
walking back to Oomoa, and offered me his
horse, but I determined to go afoot and let
Orivie, a native youth, be my mounted guide. Orivie
is named for Pere Olivier; there being no "1" in the Mar-
quesan language, the good priest's name is pronounced
as if spelled in English Oreeveeay.

The horse, the usual small, tough mountain-pony,
was caught, and upon him we strapped the saddle with
cow-skin stirrups, hairy and big, and a rope bridle,
Orivie, handsomely dressed in wrinkled denim trousers,
a yellow pareu and an aged straw hat, mounted the
beast, and bidding farewell to the friends I had made,
we began to climb the trail through the village*

At each of the dozen houses we passed I had to stop
and say Kaoha to the occupants. In these islands there
is none of that coldness toward the casual passer-by
which is common in America, where one may walk
through the tiniest village and receive no salutation un-
less the village constable sees a fee in arresting the way-
farer for not having money or a job. All the elders
were tattooed, and as every island and even every valley
differed in its style of skin decoration, these people had
new patterns and pictures of interest to, me. ' I made
it a point to linger a little before each House, praising

372

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 373

the appearance of these tattooed old people, both be-
cause it pleased them and because it is a pity that this
national art expression should die out at the whim of
whites who substitute nothing for it. By this depriva-
tion, as by a dozen others, the Marquesans have been
robbed of racial pride and clan distinction, and their
social life destroyed.

Despite this delay, Orivie and I were soon past the
houses. As population has decreased in all the valleys
the people have moved down from the upper heights to
districts nearer the sea, for neighborliness and conven-
ience. Only a few in some places have remained in the
further glens, and these are the non-conformists, who
retain yet their native ways of thought and living and
their ancient customs. This I knew, but I pursued my
way behind the climbing little horse, enjoying the many
sights and perfumes of the jungle, in happy ignorance
of an experience soon to befall me with one of these resi-
dents of the heights. It fell upon me suddenly, the
most embarrassing of several experiences that have di-
vided me between fear and laughter.

Perhaps a mile above the village, in a wilderness of
shrubbery, trees, and giant ferns, we came upon a cross-
trail, a thin line of travel hardly breaking the dense
growth, and saw a woman appear from among the
leaves. She was large, perhaps five feet, ten inches,
tall; a Juno figure, handsome and lithe. Such a woman
of her age, about twenty-two years, does the work of a
man, makes copra, fells trees, lifts heavy stones, and is a
match for the average man in strength. She was dark,
as are all Marquesans who live a hardy and vigorous
life unsheltered from sun and wind, and in the half

374 WHITE SHADOWS

shadow of the forest she seemed like an animal, wild and
savage. Her scarlet pareu and necklace of red peppers
added color to a picture that struck me at once as
bizarre and memorable.

The horse had passed her, and turning about in the
saddle Orivie replied to her greeting, while I added a
courteous "Kaoha!" She looked at me with extraor*
dinary attention, which I ascribed to my white ducks
and traveling cap, while she asked who I was, Orivie
replied that I was a stranger on my way over the moun-
tains. She advanced into the main trail then, letting
slip from her shoulders a weight of packages, tea, and
other groceries, and suddenly embraced me, smelling
my face and picking me up in a bear hug that, startled
as I was, nearly choked me.

"Take care!" cried Orivie, in a tone between alarm
and amusement. I backed hastily away, and sought to
take refuge beside a boulder, but she vaulted after me,
and seizing me again, resumed her passionate attack.

"She is a woman of the mountains! She will take
you away to her paepae I" my excited guide yelled warn-
ingly.

That was her intention. There was no doubt about
it, She seized me by the arm and tried to drag me away
from the boulder to which I clung* For several mo-
ments I was engaged in a struggle more sincere than
chivalrous on my part and ardently demonstrative on
hers. But as I absolutely would not accede to her de-
sire to give me a home in the hills, she was forced to give
up hope after a final embrace, which I ended rudely, but
scientifically. Rising to her feet again, she picked up

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 375

her burden, which must have weighed fully a hundred
pounds, and went her way.

"She is a hinenao pu" said Orivie. That means liter-
ally a coquette without reason. I did not seek for
double meaning in the remark, but expressed my opin-
ion of all hinenaos as I replaced my cap and readjusted
my garments.

"These women of the heights are all like that/' said
my guide. "They have no sense and no shame. If
they see a stranger near their home, they will seize him,
as men do women. If they are in the mood, they will
not take no for an answer. It has always been their cus-
tom, as that of the hill men capturing the valley women.
It is shameful, but it has never changed. She would
give you food and treat you with kindness as a man does
his bride. You know, in the old days the strong women
had more than one husband; sometimes four or five,
and they chose them in this way. If you were nearer
where Tepu lives, she woujd make you a prisoner.
They have often done that."

"Do we go near her home?" said I.

"No ; we see no more paepaes" replied Orivie.

"Then/ 5 1 said, "let us hasten onward/'

We mounted at every foot, and soon were above the
cocoanuts. The trail was a stream interspersed with
rocks, for in these steep accents the path, worn lower
than its borders, becomes in the rainy season the natural
bed of the trickle or torrent that runs to the valley.
The horse leaped from rock to rock, planting his back
feet and springing upward to a perch, upon which he
hung until he got balance for another leap. I followed

376 WHITE SHADOWS

the animal, knowing him wiser in such matters than I.
From time to time Orivie urged me to ride and when I
refused gave me the knowing look bestowed upon the
witless, the glance of the asylum-keeper upon the lunatic
who thinks himself a billiard ball.

We were soon so high that I saw below only a big
basin, in which was a natural temple, the vast ruin of a
gigantic minster, it seemed, and across the basin a
rugged, saw-like profile of the mountain-top. Eons
ago the upper valley was a volcano, when the island of
Fatu-hiva was under the sea. Once the fire burst
through the crater side toward the present beach, and
after the explosion there was left a massive gateway of
rock, through which we had come from the village.
Towering so high that they were hardly perceptible
when we had been beside them, they showed from this
height their whole formation, like the wrecked walls of
a stupendous basilica.

Up and up we went. The way was steeper than
any mountain I have ever climbed, except the sheer
sides of chasms where ropes are necessary, or the chim-
neys of narrow defiles. I have climbed on foot Vesu-
vius, Halaakela, Kilauea, Fuji, and May on, and the
mountains of America, Asia, and South America,
though I know nothing by trial of the t.errors of the
Alps. However, the horse could and did go up the
steep, though it taxed him to the utmost, and these
horses are like mountain-goats, for there is hardly any
level land in the Marquesas.

Unexpectedly, the sea came in view, with the Catholic
church and its white belfry, but in another turn it disap-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 377

peared. I fell again and again; the horse floundered
among the stones in the trough and fell, too, Orivie seiz-
ing trees or bushes that lined the hanks to save himself.
Rocks as large as hundred-ton vessels were on the moun-
tainside above, held from falling only hy small rocks
interposed, feeble obstacles to an avalanche. Beetling
precipices overhung the village. I thought they might
fall at any moment, and the Marquesans recount many
such happenings. In Tai-o-hae three hundred natives
were entombed forever by a landslide, and Orivie
pointed out the tracks of such slides, and immense
masses of rock in the far depths below, beside strips of
soft soil brought down by the rains.

The wild guava and the thorny TteohO; the taro, the
pandanus and the banian, all the familiar and useful
trees and plants were left behind. We toiled onward in
a wilderness of stone.

I climbed around the edge of a precipice, and stood
above the sea. The blue ocean, as I looked downward,
was directly under my eyes, and I could see the fishing
canoes like chips on the water. It was a thousand feet
straight down; the standing-place was but three feet
wide, wet and slippery. The mighty trade-wind swept
around the crags and threatened to dislodge me.

That demoniacal impulse to throw oneself from a
height took possession of me. Almost a physical urg-
ing of the body, as if some hidden 3Iephirfr,~bcles not
only poured into the soul his hellish advice to end your
life, but pushed you to the brink. As never before the
evil desire to fall from that terrible height attacked me,
and the world became a black dizziness. Struggling, I

378 WHITE SHADOWS

threw out my hand; the unconscious grip upon a stunted
fern, itself no barrier against falling, gave me a mental
grip upon myself, and the crisis was passed.

On hands and knees I crept around the ledge, for the
wind was a gale, and a slip of a foot might mean a drop
of a fifth of a mile.

The next valley, Tapaatea, came in view, and Hana-
vave a cleft in the mountains, the stream a silver cord.
A cascade gleamed on the opposite side against the
Namana hills. It is Vaieelui, the youth Orivie in-
formed me, as we went higher, still on the dangerous
ledge that binds the seaward precipice. All the valleys
converged to a point, and nothing below was distinct.

Higher we went, and were level with the jagged ridge
of the Faeone mountains toward the north, and could
look through the pierced mountain, Laputa; through
the hole, tehavaiinenao, that is like a round window to
the sky, framed in black, about which legends are raised.
Orivie smiled indulgently as I explained to him that
that hole was made by sea-currents when Laputa was
under the ocean. He knew that a certain warrior, -half
god and half man, threw his spear through the mountain
once upon a time.

We came then to the veriest pitch of the journey, like
the roof of the world, and it was necessary to crawl
about another ledge that permitted a perpendicular
view of 2500 feet, so desperate in its attraction that had
I known the name of that saint who is the patron of
alpenstock buyers I would have offered him an ave.
This was the apex. Once safely past it, the trail went
downward to a plateau.

I caught up with Orivie and the torse, and my

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 379

muscles so rejoiced at the change of motion in descent
that almost involuntarily I took a few steps of a jig and
uttered the first verses of "I Only Had Fifty Cents/'
Mosses and ferns by the billion covered every foot of the
small plateau. There were no trees. The trail was a
foot deep in water, like an irrigation ditch. One still
might easily break one's neck. And I reflected that
Pere Olivier crosses many times a year between Oomoa
and Hanavave, in his black soutan and on his weary
horse, in all weathers, alone; it is a fact to treasure for
recalling when one hears all missionaries included in the
accusation of selfishness that springs so often to the lips
t)f many men.

We reached the plane of cocoanuts, and I asked Ori-
vie to fetch down a couple, after essaying to perform that
feat myself and failing dismally besides scratching my
nose and hands. Bare feet are a requisite bare and tough
as leather. The Marquesans cut notches in the trees
after they reach maturity, to make the climbing easier, a
custom they have in many parts of Asia, but not in Ta-
hiti. These footholds are made every three feet on op-
posite sides. They are cut shallowly, inclining down-
ward and outward, in order not to wound the wood of
the tree or to form pockets in which water would collect
and rot it. With these aids they climb with ease, using
a rope of purau bark tied about the wrists, and by these
they pull themselves from notch to notch.

I have seen a child of six years reach the top of a
sixty-foot tree in a minute or so, and I have seen a man
or woman stop on the way, fifty feet from the earth,
and light a cigarette. Slim, fat, chiefs or commoners,
all learn this knack in infancy. Men who puff along

380 WHITE SHADOWS

the road because of their bulk will attain the branches
of a palm with the agility of monkeys.

Orivie had no notches to assist him, but tied his ankles
together with a piece of tough vine, leaving about ten
inches of play, and with this band, pressed tightly
against the tree, giving firm support while his arms,
clasping the trunk above, drew him upward a yard at
a time, he was at the crest of a fifty-foot tree in a
minute, and threw down two drinking nuts. They were
as big as foot-balls and weighed about five pounds each.
We had no knife, but broke in the tops with stones,
and holding up the shining green nuts, let the wine flow
down our throats. Never was a better thirst-quencher
or heartener! The hottest noon on the hottest beach,
when the coral burns the feet, this nectar is cool. After
the most arduous climb, when lungs and muscles ache
with weariness, it freshens strength and lifts the spirit.

By the cocoanut-grove ran a level stream shaded with
pandanus, and following it, we commenced again to
mount on a pathway arched by small trees, down which
the stream coursed. The cocoanuts fell away as we
went up the ridge and emerged upon a tableland cov-
ered with ferns, some green and some dead and dry,
carpeting the flat expanse as far as eye could see with
a mat of lavender, the green and the brown melting
into that soft color.

We were further on the broad roof on the mountains,
in the middle now and not on the edge, so we ran and
galloped and shouted. Wild horses fled from us, and
we heard the grunt of boar in the fern thickets. The
fan-palms, dwarfs, but graceful, intermingled with
magnificent tree-ferns, while above them curved the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 381

huetu, the immense mountain plantain, called fei in
Tahiti, where they are the bread of the people; they
have ribbed, emerald leaves, as big as a man. Feeders
of dark people in many lands for thousands of years,
theirs is the same golden fruit I had eaten at breakfast
with Pere Olivier, three thousand feet below. They
grow only in the mountains, and the men who bring
them into the villages have feet shaped like a hand
spread out to its widest, with toes twisted curiously by
climbing rocks and grasping roots for support.

The rain began to fall again, and the wind came
stronger, but now we were going down in earnest. The
sea shone again, but it was on the Oomoa side. We
passed under trees hung with marvelous orchids, the
puaauetdha> Orivie said, parasitic vines related to the
vanilla as the lion is related to the kitten, cousins, but
with little family likeness.

The trail became very dangerous at this point, a
rocky slide, with steps a foot or two apart like uneven
stairs, and all a foot, or sometimes two, under running
water. I jumped and slid and slipped, following the
unhappy plunging horse. Darkness caine on quickly
with the blinding rain, and the descent was often at an
angle of forty-five degrees, over rocks, eroded hills,
along the edge of a precipice. I fell here, and saved
myself by catching a root in the trail and pulling my-
self up again. I would have dropped upon the roof
of the gendarme's house a thousand feet below.

We heard the sound of the surf, and letting the horse
go, Orivie led. me, by that sense we surrender for the
comforts of civilization, down the bed of a cascade to
the River of Oomoa, which we waded, and then arrived

382 WHITE SHADOWS

at Grelet's house. We had come thirteen miles. I
was tired, but Orivie made nothing of the journey.

Covered with mud as I was, I went to the river and
bathed in the rain and, returning to the house, looked
after my health. A half ounce of rum, a pint of cocoa-
nut-milk from a very young nut, the juice of half a lime
just from the tree, two lumps of sugar, and I had an
invigorating draught, long enough for a golf player
after thirty-six holes, and delicate enough for a de-
butante after her first cotillion. The Paumotan boys
and Pae looked on in horror, saying that I was spoiling
good rum.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Return in a canoe to Atuona; Tetuahnnahuna relates the story of the girl
who rode the white horse in the celebration of the fete of Joan of Arc*
in Tai-o-hae; Proof that sharks hate women; steering by the stars to
Atuona beach.

canoe we had followed to Hanavave stopped
in Oomoa on its way to Hiva-oa, my home, for
I had bargained with Tetuahnnahuna, its owner,
for my conveyance to Atuona. Grelet would event-
ually have transported me, but so great was his aver-
sion to leaving Fatu-hiva that I felt it would be asking
too much of him. He reminded me that Kant, the
great metaphysician, had lived eighty years in his birth-
place and never stirred more than seven miles from it.

The canoe had come to Hanavave to bring back two
young women. One was dark, a voluptuous figure in
a pink satin gown over a lace petticoat. A leghorn
hat, trimmed with shells and dried nuts, sat coquettishly
upon her masses of raven hair. Upon her neck,
rounded as a young cocoanut-tree, was a necklace of
pearls that an empress might have envied her, had they
been real and not the synthetic gift of some trader.
Small and shapely feet, bare, peeped from under her
filmy frills. Her eyes were the large, limpid orbs of
the typical Marquesan, like sepia, long-lashed ; her nose
straight and perfect, her mouth sensuous and demand-
ing. Ghost Girl, her name signified, and she flitted
about the islands like a sprite.

"She levies tribute on all whom she likes/* said Grelet.

8S3

384 WHITE SHADOWS

"Her devotions are rum and tobacco." On meeting
me she squatted and spat through her fingers to show
her thirst, as do all Marquesans whose manners have
not been corrupted by strangers.

The other girl, younger, in a scarlet tunic with a
wreath of hibiscus flowers on her head, startled me by
appearing with all her body that I could see colored
a brilliant yellow. She had decked herself for the jour-
ney with a covering of ewa-paste, perfumed with saffron,
a favorite cosmetic of island beauties.

The sun was white on Oomoa beach as we came down
to it from the grateful shade of Grelet's plantation.
Against the blinding glimmer of it the half -naked boats-
men, bearing bunches of bananas, dozens of drinking
nuts, bread, and wine, the gifts of my host, were dark
silhouettes outlined against the blue sea.

Behind them walked Tetuahunahuna. Calm, unbur-
dened, and without a tattoo mark on his straight brown
body, he looked the commander of men that he was,
a man whose word none would think to question or
to doubt. Indifferent alike to the dizzying heat and
to the admiring glances of the women, he set at once
to ordering the loading of the boat that lay upon the
sands beyond the reach of the breakers.

A dozen women lounged in the ancient public place
beneath the banian tree, a mighty platform of black
stone on which the island women had sat for centuries
to watch their men come and go in canoes to the fish-
ing or to raids on neighboring bays, and where for
decades they have awaited the landing of their white
sailor lovers.

"Tai menino! A pacific sea!" they called to us as

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 385

we passed them, and their eyes followed with envy the
progress of Ghost Girl and Sister of Anna.

The boat was already well loaded when I reached
it. The fermented breadfruit wrapped in banana-
leaves, the pig dug from the pit that morning and
packed in sections of bamboo, the calabashes of river
water, the bananas and drinking nuts, were all in place.
With difficulty my luggage was added to the cargo,
and we found cramped places for ourselves and bade
farewell to Grelet, while the oarsmen held the boat
steady at the edge of the lapping waves. Tetuahuna- 1
fauna, watching the breakers, gave a quick word of com-e
mand, and we plunged through the foam. t

The boat leaped and pitched in the flying spray
The oarsmen, leaping to their places, struck out witlj,
the oars. A sharp ff Haie!" of alarm rose behind me, T
and I saw that an oar had snapped. But Tetuahuna-
huna, waist-deep in the water at our stern, gave a
mighty push, and we were safely afloat as he clambered
over the edge and stood dripping on the steersman's
tiny perch, while the men, holding the boat head-on
to the rolling waves, drove us safely through to open
water.

Outside the bay they put by their oars and we waited
for a breeze to give the signal for hoisting mast and
sail. The beach lay behind us, a narrow line of white
beyond the whiter curve of surf. The blue sky burned
above us, and to the far shimmering horizon stretched
the blue calm of a windless sea.

We rolled idly, the sun scorching us. In an hour
I was so hot that I began to wonder if I could endure
the torment. The buckle on my trousers burned my

386 WHITE SHADOWS

flesh, and I could not touch my clothes without pain.
The Marquesans lay comfortably on the seats and bun-
dles, enjoying their pandanus-leaf cigarettes. Every
few moments the bow-oar skillfully rolled one, took a
few puffs and handed it to the next man, who, after
taking his turn, passed it down the waiting line.

From time to time Tetuahunahuna, squatting in the
stern, made a sign, and a fresh cigarette passed un-
touched through eight hands to his. He smoked
serenely, gazing at the smooth swells of water and wait-
ing with inexhaustible patience for the wind. At his
tfeet the fifteen-year-old girl, Sister of Anne, disposed
Aer saffron-colored body upon oars laid across the
fthwarts and slept. Ghost Girl, beside me, laid her
Djiossy head in my lap to doze more comfortably.
c Jammed against the unyielding thwarts, I passed
miserable hours, unable to move more than a few inches
in the narrow space. At noon, with the vertical eye
of the evil sun staring down upon us, my clothes were
so hot that I had to hold them off my body, I medi-
tated leaping into the ocean and swimming awhile.
Ghost Girl saw my intention when I stirred, and pulled
me back beside her.

"Mako!" she cried. "Puoa hoe!" She pointed to
starboard. A gray fin moved slowly through the water
twenty feet away. "A shark, and a wicked beast he
isl" She reached to pick up an opened cocoanut and
tossed some of the milk over her shoulder to appease
the demon, ff Mako!" she repeated. "Puaa hoe!"

"EeqwnF echoed Tetuahunahuna in French. "The
devil of the Marquesas!"

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 387

"But you are not afraid of them. You swim where
they are," said I.

"Few of us are bitten by sharks/' said Tetuahuna-
huna, sizing up a puff of wind that brought a faint
hope. It died, and he continued. "We are often in
the sea, and do not fear the make enough to make us
weak against him. I have killed many with a knife.
I have tied ropes about their bellies and made them
feel silly as we pulled them in. I have tickled their
bellies with the point of the knife that slit them later.
They are awkward, they must turn over to bite, and
they are afraid of a man swimming. But they are
devils, and hate women. They do not like men, but
women they will go far to kill."

He took the cigarette Ghost Girl handed him and,
squatting on the rudder deck, looked at me to see if I
were interested.' Wretched as I felt, I returned his
glance, and said "Tiatohoa?" which means, "Is that
so?" and showed that I was attentive.

"It is so/' he replied. "There are reasons for this.
In times before the memory of man a shark-god was
deceived by a woman. In his anger he overturned an
island, but this did not appease his hate. Since that
time all sharks have preyed on women."

Sister of Anne moved restlessly in her sleep and put
her 7Wi-covered feet across my knees, feet as hot as
an iron pump-handle on a July noon.

"Hakaia!" exclaimed Ghost Girl, and hung the feet
over the side.

"Sharks will let men live to kill women/' Tetuahuna-
huna resumed. "There are many proofs of this, but

388 WHITE SHADOWS

most convincing is a happening that every one in Tai-
o-hae and Nuka-hiva knows, because it happened only
a few years ago. I saw that happening."

I looked at him with attention, and after a few puffs
of smoke he continued.

"You may think, you who use the Iron Fingers That
Make Words, that the shark does not know the differ-
ence between men and women. I have seen it, and I
will tell you honestly. I have thought often of it, for
all who live in Tai-o-hae know that woman, and her
foster-sister sits there with the ena upon her. She does
not lie in the cemetery, this girl of whom I speak, nor
is her body beside that of her fathers in the ua tupapau.
Her name was Anna, a name for your country, fenua
Menike,, for her father was captain of a vessel with three
masts that came from Newbeddifordimass, a place
where all the Menike ships that hunt the whale came
from. Her mother was O Take Oho, of the valley of
Hapaa, whose father was eaten by the men of Tai-
o-hae in the war with that white captain, Otopotee.

ff Ue! Those big ships that hunt the whale come no
more. The paaoa spouts with none to strike him.
Standireili makes the lanterns burn in Menike land,
and they send it here in tipoti, the big cans. The old
days are gone.

"The father of Anna saw her first when she was one
year old and could barely swim. He came in his ship
from Newbeddifordimass, and he said that it was for
the last time, for the whaling was done. He was a
young man, strong and a user of strong words, but he
looked with pride on the little Anna, and kept her
with her mother on his ship for many weeks, while

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 389

the men of the ship danced with the girls. He would
bathe on the heach in the bay of Tai-o-hae, and the little
Anna would swim to him through the deep water. He
gave her a small silver box with a silver chain, for the
tiki of Bernadette, on the day that he sailed away.

"He did not come again to Tai-o-hae, nor Atuona,
nor Hanavave. We heard that he traded with Tahiti,
and had given up the chase of the paaoa. I have never
been in Tahiti, They say that it is beautiful and that
the people are joyous. They have all the namu they
can drink. The government is good to them." Tetua-
hunahuna sighed, and looked at my bag, in which was
the bottle of rum Grelet had given me.

I poured a drink into the cocoanut-shell Ghost Girl
had emptied, and gave it to him, "Kaohaf* he said
and, having swallowed the rum, went on.

<r When Anna had fourteen years she was moi kana-
Jiua, as beautiful as a great pearl, She was tall for
her age as are the daughters of the great. Her hair
was of red and of gold, like that of Titihuti of Atuona.
Her eyes were the color of the mio, the rosewood when
freshly cut, and her breasts like the milk-cocoanut
husked for drinking.

"Many young men, Marquesan men and all the white
men, and George Washington, the black American,
tried to capture Anna, but Pere Simeon, the priest,
had given her to the blessed Maria Peato, and the Sis-
ters guarded her carefully. From the time she played
naked on the beach she wore the tiki of Bernadette in
the silver box given her by her father, and she said the
prayers Pere Simeon taught her from the book. She
wore a blue pareu 9 and that was strange, for only old

390 WHITE SHADOWS

people, and few of them, wear any but the red or yellow
loin-cloth. But blue, said little Anna, is the color of
Maria Peato, mother of Christ."

The others were listening curiously. Ghost Girl
crossed herself and muttered, "Kaoha, Maria Peato!"

"When she had fourteen years, then, Anna was dif-
ferent from all other girls on these beaches. All men
sighed for her, but she was one who would not follow
the custom of our girls since always. She was made
different by her mother, by the prayers of Pere Simeon,
and by something strange in her Jcuhane what do you
say? Soul. She cared nothing for drink or pipi, the
trinkets girls adore. She spoke of herself always as
the daughter of a Menike captain, a father who would
come for her and take her away. Her mother had kept
this always in her mind, and Anna never joined the
dances.

"Her mother, who lived on the beach and waited for
the sailors, saw her seldom, for Pere Simeon had taken
Anna away, and kept her in the nuns' house, and they
guarded her. He had put a tapu upon her."

I sat up suddenly, struck by a memory. "It was
she who rode the white horse, and bore the armor of
Joan in the great parade?"

"It was she. The nuns would have had her live in
the nun's house forever, and become one of them. But
Anna told me on the beach when she came hiding to
see her mother, that she would live in the nuns' house
only until her Menike father came to take her away.
She kept the tiM of Bernadette in its silver box upon
her neck, and it was her god to whom she said her
prayers/*

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 391

"Epo!" I said, sitting up, dumfoundecL "Go on,
Teiuahunahuna. Tell me more."

"There came the great day of the blessed Joan," said
Tetuahunahuna, after tasting a fresh cigarette. "There
were drums and chants, and rum for all Pere Simeon
took away the rum, alas! and only the Menike sailors
on the ships could have enough. Anna wore a gar-
ment that shone like the sun on the waves, and sat
upon a white horse, riding from the mission to the
House of Lepers on the beach. Pere Simeon walked
before her carrying the tiki of the Sacrament, and
there were banners white as the new web of the cocoa-
nut. Anna did not look to right or to left as she sat
upon the horse, but when she stood on the sand by the
House of Lepers, she looked long at a new ship in the

"Anna said that this ship might be that of her white
father, but the name was different, and this ship was
not from Newbeddifordimass* She said she would
swim to this ship to see her father, but her mother said
no. Her mother told her that the waters were full of
sharks, and that not even a tiki of Bernadette would
save her. Then came the nuns, and took Anna away.
Anna wept as she went with them, for she desired to
stay and look at the ship.

"That night the boats of the ship could not land on
the beach of Tai-o-hae, for the sea was too great, so
that they came and went from Peikua, the staircase in
the rocks. The sailors had leave to do what they wished
and they had plenty of rum given them by the captain
who was born that day forty years before. I went
then to the ship to drink the captain's rum and to buy

892 WHITE SHADOWS

tobacco. I am of Hiva-oa, and the ship was large, and
new to me."

Tetuahunahuna's gesture brought quickly to him a
fresh cigarette, and he savored its rank smoke with sat-
isfaction. The slender canoe swung like a hammock in
the long, sluggish rollers. The sun blazed pitilessly
upon us, and no slightest ruffle of white broke the sur-
face of the calm, unrelenting sea that held us prisoner.

"At night there was nobody on the ship not drunk.
Some of the men had seized several women on the road
that leads to Tai-o-hae, and had forced them to the
boat and carried them aboard. Among these women
was Anna, who had fled from the nuns to seek word
of her father. She fought like a wild woman of the
hills when they held her in jest to make her swallow
the rum, but the strong ship men conquered her, and
the sound of their laughter and her cries was so great
that the captain himself came forward. When he saw
her he claimed her as the youngest, as is the custom.

"She went with him weeping. When they came to
his cabin, we heard her crying aloud to Maria Peato.
We heard the shouts of the captain, enraged, subduing
her with blows. There was much rum, and the women
were dancing. There was much noise, but I had drunk
little, having just come to the ship, and I heard the
crying and weeping of Anna.

"After a time came Anna, running across the deck.
It was a large vessel, and it was a dark night. The
captain pursued her. She climbed the rigging, and the
captain ordered two men to go aloft and bring her to
him.

"Every one came to look, with yells and with songs.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 393

The sailors climbed after her, and she went higher and
higher, until near the top of that tall mast, taller than
the greatest eoeoanut-tree in Atuona. There she held
to the wood, calling upon Maria Peato. The captain
was like a man mad with namu. He called to the
sailors to climb higher. But when one reached to take
her by the foot, she threw herself into the air and fell
a great distance into the water.

"The captain cried that he would give four litres of
rum to the man that brought her back. Some ran to
get the boat, others dived after her. I was one of these.

"I have said that it was a black night. When in the
water we could get no sight of her. Then on the ship
one turned a bright lantern on the sea, and all of us
saw her arm as it was raised to swim. She was a hun-
dred feet before us, and swimming with great swift-
ness. The sailors meantime had set out in the boat,
but they had drunk much rum, and rowed around and
around. We three men swimming in the beams of the
lantern came closer to her at every stroke.

"Almost my hand was upon her, when the largest
shark I have ever seen rose beside her. You know
it is at night that these devils look for their prey. Anna
saw the make at the same moment, and made a great
splashing. I heard her call out the name of Bernadette
the Blessed.

"The men with me turned about, but I kept on. I
cried to the boat to hurry to us. I could see the mako
turn in the water, as he must do to take anything into
his mouth. I kicked him and I struck him, and I cursed
him by the name of Manu-Aiata, the shark god. If
I had had a knife I could have killed him easily*

394 WHITE SHADOWS

"But, Menike, I could do nothing. He did not want
me. The boat came, but not in time. I saw the devil
take her in his jaws as the wild boar takes a bird that
is helpless, and I felt him descend into the depths of
the sea. I could do nothing."

A cat's-paw stole across the sea from the southeast,
the boat rolled hard, and Tetuahunahuna sprang erect.

"A toi te kal Make sail!" he said.

They raised the slender mast, a rose-wood tree,
roughly shaped in the forest, and fastened it to either
thwart with three ropes. Through a ring at its head
was passed the lift, and the sail of mats, old and worn,
was set, men and women all fastening the strings to
the boom. Two sheets were used*, one cleated about
five feet from the rudder, the other at the disposition
of the steersman, who let out the boom according to the
wind.

The breeze sprang up and died, and sprang up again.
At last the deathly calm, the sickening heat, were over,
and we sped across the freshening waves.

Mast and sail out of the way, we stretched ourselves
in the boat with more comfort, enjoying the cooling
current of air, Tetuahunahuna, the sheet in his hand,
squatted again on his narrow perch.

"You returned to that ship when the boat picked you
up?" I asked.

"AueF he replied. "The captain was crazed with
anger. He cursed me, and said that the girl has swum
ashore.

" 'No, the shark has taken Anna/ I said. 'She will
look for her white father no more.'

"The captain had a glass of rum at his mouth, but

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 395

he put it down. He would have me tell him again her
name. When I did so, he shook as if with cold, and
he swallowed the rum quickly.

" 'Where was she born?' he said next,

" 'At Hapaa. Her mother is Take Oho, whose
father was eaten by the men of Tai-o-hae,' I said, and
looking at his face I saw that his eyes were the color
of the into, the rosewood when freshly cut.

"The captain went to his cabin, and soon he leaped
up the stairs, falling over the thing they look at to steer
the ship, and there, lying on the deck, he cried again
and again that I had done wrong not to tell him earlier.

"He held in his hand the tiki, the silver btx that Anna
had always worn about her neck, that her father had
given her.

"He was like a wild bull in the hills, that ship's cap-
tain, when he arose, roaring and cursing me. I feared
that he would shoot me, for he had a revolver in his
hand and said that he would kill himself. But he did
not.

"A Marquesan who was as hateful to himself would
have eaten the eva, but this man had not the courage,
with all his cries. I swam ashore when he became mad-
dened as a kava drinker who does not eat. The mother
of Atuona, whom I told in Tai-o-hae, went to see him,
but he did not know her, and she took the tiki from
his cabin when she found him praying to it. He was
paea, his stomach empty of thought. When the ship
left, he was tied with the irons they have for sailors,
and the second chief sailed the vessel."

The Ghost Girl shook the ena-covered maiden.

ef Oi vii!" she said petulantly. 'Take in your feet.

396 WHITE SHADOWS

Do you want the mako to eat them? Do you not re-
member your sister?"

The shark still moved a few fathoms away,

We were now in the open sea, with forty miles to
go to the Bay of Traitors. The boat lay over at an
angle, the boom hissed through the water when close-
hauled, and when full-winged, its heel bounced and
splashed on the surface, as we made our six knots.
There was twice too much weight in the canoe, but
these islanders think nothing of loads, and for hours
the company sat to windward or on the thwart while
we took advantage of every puff of wind that blew.
The six oarsmen took turns in bailing, using a heavy
carved wooden scoop, but in the frequent flurries the
waves poured over the side.

The island of Fatu-hiva faded behind us, and raised
Moho-Tani, the Isle of Barking Dogs, a small, but
beautifully regular, islet, like a long emerald. No soul
dwells ' there. The Moi-Atiu clan peopled it before a
sorcerer dried up the water sources. A curse is upon
it, and while the cocoanuts flourish and all is fair to
the eye, it remains a shunned and haunted spot.

Tahuata, that lovely isle of the valley of Vait-hua,
rose on our left, with the cape Te hope e te keko, a
purple coast miles away, which as the dusk descended
grew darker and was lost. The shadowy silhouettes
of the mountains of Hiva-oa projected themselves on
the horizon.

Night fell like a wall, and nothing was to be seen but
the glow of the pipe that passed as if by spirit hands
around our huddled group. The head of Ghost Girl

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 397

was on my knees, and among the sons and daughters
of cannibals peace enveloped me as at twilight in a
grove. More in tune with the moods of nature, the
rhythm of sea and sky, the hreath of the salt breeze,
than we who have sold our birthright for arts, these sav-
ages sat silent for a little while as if the spirit of the
hour possessed their souls.

Then the stars began to take their places in heaven
to do their duty toward the poor of earth, and I saw
the bright and inspiring faces of many I knew. The
wind shifted and freshened, the sail was drawn nearer,
and our speed became perilous. The waves grew, but
Tetuahunahuna, seeing nothing, but feeling with sheet
and helm the temper of changing air and water, kept
the canoe's prow steady, and the men, in emergencies,
threw themselves half over the starboard gunwale. 1
was on the edge of the steersman's perch, enjoying the
mist of the flying spray and watching the stars appear
one by one.

Tetuahunahuna pointed toward the northern sky.

"Miope! I steer by the star the color of the rose-
wood tree," he said. There was our own Mars, redder
than the sunsets over Mariveles. Northwest he was,
this god of war and fertility, and our bow beacon.
Turning and gazing toward Fatu-hiva I saw the South-
ern Cross, low in the sky, brilliant, and splendid.

"Mataike fetuF Ghost Girl named the constellation.
"The Small Eyes."

"Miope has rivers like Taka-Uku and Atuona," I
said, relying on the alleged canals of Mars to save my
soul. "I have seen through a karahi mea tiohi i te fetu.

398 WHITE SHADOWS

the Mirror Thing Through Which One Looks At The
Stars, long as a tree and big around as a pig. Miope
has people upon it."

"Are they Marquesans?"

"They must be Marquesans for there are islands/' I
replied.

"And popoi and pigs?" demanded the mi-perfumed
one.

ff Namu? Have they rum?" whispered the Ghost
Girl, and nestled closer, remembering that soon we
would be at iny own house.

I had confidence in Tetuahunahuna's stars. The
Polynesians have always had an excellent working
knowledge of the heavens and were deeply interested
in astronomy. They knew the relative positions of the
stars, their changes and phases. They predicted
weather changes accurately, and kept in their memories
periodicity charts so that they are able to form estimates
of what will be, by considering what has been. They
had a wonderful art of navigation, considering that they
had no compass, sextant, or other instrument, and that
their vessels were always comparatively small. The
handling of canoes, like swimming, is instinctive with
them, and no white ever compares with them in skill.

Our boat doubled Point Teachoa, and we were in
the Bay of Traitors. The wind suddenly fell flat, and
we rowed several miles to the beach. A score of lights
moved about on the dark waters of the bay, and fisher-
men shouted to us to come to them. We found Great
Fern, my landlord, with Apporo, Broken Plate with
the Vagabond, and they had several canoes full of fish.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 399

They were delighted at my return, and rubbed noses
with me over the gunwales.

Getting ashore at the stone steps of Taka-Uka was
a task worthy of such boatsmen, in the darkness, the
sea beating madly against the cliffs. Tetuahunahuna
listened to the smashing waves and peered for the
blacker outlines of the stairway and the faint gleam of
the foam. The boat approached; the sea leaped to
break it against the rocks. The steersman held it a
second, and in that second you had to leap. It is touch
and go, and heaven help you! If you miss, you fall
into the sea, or the boat crushes you against the rocks.
The swell sweeps the place you land on, and you must
ascend quickly to safety or find hold against the suck
of the retiring water.

Tetuahunahuna ran to the nearest house for a lan-
tern and poles, and while two remained in the boat to
hold it off the rocks, the others carried my luggage to
Atuona. I took the lead in a drizzling rain, carrying
the light, mighty glad to stretch my legs after more than
a dozen hours of cramp. Passing the house of the chief -
of-police, I heard laughter and the clink of glasses.
Bauda halted me with a leveled revolver, thinking we
were a rum-smuggling gang. That brave African sol-
dier was ever dramatic, and D'Artagnan could not have
struck a finer attitude as he thrust the gun in my face
and called out, ff Halte laf

"Ah, c'est le Yahnk 9 DoodF. Mais tonnerre de dieu*
you have been away a long time!"

CHAPTER XXXIV

Sea sports; curious sea-foods found at low tide; the peculiarities of sea-
centipedes and how to cook and eat them.

WITH what delight I returned to lazy days
in Atuona Valley, lounging on the black
\paepae of my own small blue cabin in the
shadow of Temiteu, idling on the sun-warm sands of
the familiar beach, walking the remembered road be-
tween banana hedges heavy with yellowing fruit! The
heart of man puts down roots wherever it rests; it
is perhaps this sense of home that gives the zest to
wandering, for new experiences gain their value from
contrast with the old, and one must have felt the bond-
age, however light, of emotion and habit before he can
know the joy of freedom from it. Still a man leaves
part of himself in every home he makes, and the wan-
derer, free of the one strong cord that would hold him
to one place, feels always the urge of a thousand slen-
der ties pulling him back to the thousand temporary
homes he has made everywhere on the world.

So the old routine closed around me pleasantly; morn-
ings in the shade of my palms and breadfruit, eating
the breakfasts prepared for me by Exploding Eggs
over the fire of cocoanut husks, baths in the clear pool
of the river with my neighbors, afternoons spent in the
cocoanut-groves or with merry companions on the beach.

Exploding Eggs directed the surf board with a sure
hand, lying flat, kneeling or even standing on the long

400

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 401

plank as he came in on the crest of the breakers. I
had now and again succeeded in being carried along
while flat on my stomach on the board, but failed many
times oftener than I succeeded. Now I set myself in
earnest to learn the art of mastering the surf.

Three or four o'clock in the afternoon was the time
I usually chose for the sport, and once I had made it a
practice, all the boys and girls of the village accom-
panied me, or waited for me at the shore, sure of hila-
rious hours. I must make children my companions
here, for my older friends were so oppressed by the
gloom of race extinction that save for Malicious Gossip
and one or two others, there was no capacity for joyous-
ness left in them. Exploding Eggs was my chum, paid
as forager and firemaker, but giving from friendliness
his services as a wise and admirable teacher of the un-
known to one unmade by civilization.

The bay of Atuona, narrow between high cliffs cov-
ered with cocoanut-trees, was the scene of my lessons.
The tide came booming into this cove from the Bay of
Traitors, often with bewildering force, and a day or
two a month as gently as the waves at WaikikL The
river spread a broad mouth to drink the brine, and the
white sand was over-run by the flowered vines that crept
seaward to taste the salt. No house was in sight, no
man-made structure to mar the primitive, as our merry
crew of boys and girls sported naked in the surf, fished
from the rocks, or lay upon the shining beach.

For my first essay I used the lid of a box that had
enclosed an ornate coffin ordered from Tahiti by a chief
who anticipated dying. It was large, and weighty to
drag or push through the surf to the proper distance.

402 WHITE SHADOWS

Laboring valiantly with it, I reached some distance from
the shore, and prepared a triumphal return. The waves
were big, curving above me in sheets of clearest emerald
crested with spray, breaking into foam and rising again,
endlessly reshaping, repeating themselves.

Awaiting my opportunity, I chose one as it rose be-
hind me, and flung myself upon it. Up and up and
still higher I went, carried by resistless momentum, and
suddenly like a chip in a hurricane I was flung forward
at a fearsome speed, through rushing chaos of wind and
water, seeing the beach dashing toward me, shouting
with exultation.

At the next instant my trusty board turned traitor.
Its prow sank, the end beneath me rose, and like a stone
discharged from a sling I was thrown under the waves,
head over heels, banging my head and body on the
sand, leaped upon by following waves that piled me into
shallow water, rolling me over and over, striking me a
blow with the coffin-lid at every roll.

I lay high and dry, panting and aching, while from
all the beach rose shouts of laughter. Exploding
Eggs rolled on the sand in his delight, holding his gasp-
ing sides, scarcely able to remind me of the necessity,
which in my excitement I had forgotten,, of keeping
the prow of the board pointed upward as I rode.

Often as I repeated this instruction in my mind,
firmly as I determined to remember it while I toiled
sea-ward again with the coffin-lid, the result was always
the same, A moment of rest in the unresting waves,
a quick, agile spring, a moment of mad, intoxicating joy,
and then disaster. I became a mass of bruises, the
skin scraped inch by inch from my chest by contact

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 403

with the rough wood. I would not give up until I had
to, and then for a week I was convalescing.

One stiff ache from head to foot, I lay ignominiously
on the sand, and watched Exploding Eggs, with a piece
of box not higger than a fat man's shirt-front, take
wave after wave, standing on the board, dashing far
across the breakers to the shore, with never a failure,
while Gedge's little half-breed daughter, a beautiful
fairy-like creature, darted upon the sea as a butterfly
upon a zephyr.

After several weeks of effort and mishap, one day
the secret came to me like a flash, and the trick was
learned. I had been using the great board and was
weary. I exchanged with Exploding Eggs for a plank
three feet long and fourteen inches wide. Almost ex-
hausted, I waited as usual with the butt of the board
against my stomach for the incoming breaker to be just
behind and above me, and then leaped forward to kick
out vigorously, the board pressed against me and my
hands extended along its sides, to get in time with the
wave.

But the wave was upon me before I had thought to
execute these instructions, I straightened myself out
rigidly, and lo! I shot in like a torpedo on the very
top of the billow, holding the point of the board up,
yelling like a Comanche Indian. So fast, so straight
did I go, that it was all I could do to swerve in the
shallow water and not be hurled with force on the sand.

"Metai! Me metai!" cried my friends in excited con-
gratulation, while like all men who succeed by accident,
I stood proudly, taking the plaudits as my due.

From that afternoon I had most exhilarating sport,

404 WHITE SHADOWS

and indeed, this is the very king of amusements for fun
and exercise. Skeeing, tobogganing, skating, all land
sports fade hefore the thrills of this; nor will anything
give such abounding health and joy in living as surf-
riding in sunny seas.

A hundred afternoons on Atuona Bay I spent in this
exhilarating pastime. To it we added embellishments,
multiplying excitements. A score of us would start at
the same moment from the same line and race to shore;
we would carry two on a board; we would stand and
fcneel and direct our course so that we could touch a
marked spot on the beach or curve about and swerve and
jostle each other. Exploding Eggs was the king of us
all, and Teata was queen. She advanced as effortlessly
as a mermaid, her superb figure shining on the shining
water, tossing her long black hair, and shrieking with
delight.

Occasionally we varied these sports by a much more
dangerous and arduous game. We would push our
boards far out in the bay, half a mile or more, diving un-
der each wave we faced, until after tremendous effort we
reached the farthest sea-ward line of breakers. Often
while I swam, clinging to the board and struggling with
the waves for its possession, I saw in the emerald water
curling above me the shadowy shapes of large fish, car-
ried on the crests of the combers, transfigured clearly
against the. sky, fins and heads and tails -outlined with
light.

Once in smoother water we waited for the proper mo-
ment, counting the foam-crests as they passed. Waves
go in multiples of three, the third being longer and
going farther than the two before it, and the ninth, or

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 405

third third, being strongest of all. This ninth wave we
waited for. Choosing any other meant being spilled in
tumbling water when it broke far from land, and fall-
ing prey to the succeeding ones, which bruised unmerci-
fully.

But taking the ninth monster at its start, we rode
marvelously, staying at its summit as it mounted higher
and higher, shouting above the lesser rollers, until it
dashed upon the smooth sand half a mile away. Ex-
ultation kept the heart in the throat, the pulses beating
wildly, as the breaker tore its way over the foaming rol
lers, I on the roof of the swell, lying almost over its
front wall, holding like death to my plank while the
wind sang in my ears and sky and sea mingled in rush-
ing blueness.

To take such a ride twice in an afternoon taxed my
strength, but the Marquesan boys and girls were never
wearied, and laughed at my violent breathing.

The Romans ranked swimming with letters, saying of
an uneducated man, ff Nec literas didicit nee natare"
He had neither learned to read nor to swim. The sea
is the book of the South Sea Islanders. They swim as
they walk, beginning as babies to dive and to frolic in the
water. Their mothers place them on the river bank at
a day old, and in a few months they are swimming in
shallow water. At two and three years they play in
the surf, swimming with the easy motion of a frog.
They have no fear of the water to overcome, for they
are accustomed to the element from birth, and it is to
them as natural as land.

It should be so with all, for human locomotion in
water is no more tiresome or difficult than on the earth.

406 WHITE SHADOWS

One element is as suitable to man as the other for trans-
portation of himself, when habitude give natural move-
ment, strength, and fearlessness. A Marquesan who
cannot swim is unknown, and they carry objects through
the water as easily as through a grove, I have seen a
woman with an infant at her breast leap from a canoe
and swim through a quarter of a mile of breakers to the
shore, merely to save a somewhat longer walk.

One's hours at the beach were not all spent in the water
Many were the curious and delicious morsels we found
on the rocks that were uncovered at low tide, stranded
fish, crabs, and small crawling shell-fish. One of our
favorites was the sea-urchin, called hatuke, fetuke, or
matuke. Round, as big as a Bartlett pear, with green-
ish spines five or six inches long, they were as hideous to
see as they were pleasant to eat. In the last quarter of
the moon they were specially good, though what the
moon has to do with their flavor neither the Marquesans
nor I know. It is so; the Marquesans have always
known it, and I have proved it.

The spines of these sea-urchins make slate-pencils in
some of the islands, and are excellent for hastily writing
on a nearby cliff a message to a friend who is following
tardily. The creatures are poisonous when alive, how-
ever, and revenge a blow of careless hand or foot by
wounds that are long in healing.

We found lobsters among the rocks, too, and on some
beaches a strange kind of lobsterish delicacy called in
Tahiti varo, a kind of mantis-shrimp that looks like a
superlatively villainous centipede;. They grow from
six to twelve inches long and a couple of inches wide,
with legs or feelers all along their sides, like the teeth of

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 40,

a pocket-comb. Their shells are translucent yellow
with black markings; the female wears a red stripe down
her back and carries red eggs beneath her. Both she
and her mate, with their thousand crawling legs, their
hideous heads and tails, have a most repulsive appear-
ance. If one did not know they are excellent food and
most innocent in their habits, one would flee precipitately
at sight of them.

Catching the varo is a delicate and skilful art. They
live in the shallows near the beach, digging their holes in
the sand under two or three feet of water. When the
wind ruffles the surface, it is impossible to see the holes,
but on calm days we waded knee-deep in the clear
water, stepping carefully and peering intently for the
homes of the sea-centipede. Finding one, we cauti-
ously lowered into the hole a spool fitted with a dozen
hooks.

A pair of the creatures inhabits the same den. If the
male was at home, he seized the grapnel and was quickly
lifted and captured, the hooks being lowered again for
the female. But if the female emerged first> it was a
sure sign that her mate was absent,

I pondered as to this habit of the varo, and would
have liked to persuade me that the male, being a courte-
ous shrimp, combatted the invading hooks first in an
effort to protect his mate. But the grapnel is baited
with fish, and though masculine pride could wish that
chivalry urged the creature to defend his domestic
shrine, it appears regrettably certain that he is merely
after the bait, to which he- clings with such selfish ob-
stinacy that he sacrifices his liberty and his life. How-
ever, the lady soon shows the same grasping tendency,

408 WHITE SHADOWS

and their deserted tenement is filled by the shifting
sands.

Catching varo calls for much patience and dexterity.
I never succeeded in landing one, but Teata would often
skip back to the sands of the beach with a string of them.
Six would make a good meal, with bread and wine, and
they are most enjoyable hot, though also most danger-
ous.

"Begin their eating by sucking one cold/* warned Ex-
ploding Eggs when presiding over my first feast upon
the twelve-inch centipedes. "If he does not grip you
inwardly, you may then eat them hot and in great num-
bers/'

Many white men can not eat the varo. Some lose
appetite at its appearance, its likeness to a gigantic
thousand-leg, and others find that it rests uneasy within
them, as though each claw, or tooth of the comb, viciously
stabbed their interiors. I found them excellent when
wrapped in leaves of the hotu-tiee and fried in brown
butter, and they were very good when broiled over a
fire on the beach. One takes the beastie in his fingers
and sucks out the meat. Beginners should keep their
eyes closed during this operation.

CHAPTER XXXV

Court day in Atuona; the case of Daughter of the Pigeon and the sewing-
machine; the story of the perfidy of Drink of Beer and the death of
Earth Worm who tried to kill the governor.

T | "^HE Marquesan was guaranteed his day in court.

I There was one judge in the archipelago and one

JL doctor, and they were the same, being united in
the august person of M. L'Hermier des Plantes, who
was also the pharmacist. The jolly governor, in his
twenties, with medical experience in an African army
post and in harracks in France, was irked by his judicial
and administrative duties, though little troubled by his
medical functions, since he had few drugs and knew that
unless these were swallowed by the patient in his pres-
ence they would be tried upon the pigs or worn as an
amulet around the neck. Faithful to his orders, how-
ever, the judge sat upon the woolsack Saturdays, unless
it was raining or he wished to shoot Jcuku.

One Saturday morning, being invited to breakfast at
the palace, I strolled down to observe the workings of
justice. Court was called to order in the archives room
of the governor's house. The judge sat at a large table,
resplendent in army blue and gold, with cavalry boots
and spurs, his whiskers shining, his demeanor grave and
stern. Bauda, clerk of the court, sat at his right, and
Peterano, a native catechist, stood opposite him attired
in blue overalls and a necklace of small green nuts,
ready to act as interpreter.

Each defendant, plaintiff, prisoner, and witness was.

409

410 WHITE SHADOWS

sworn impressively, though no Bible was used; which re-
minded me that in Hongkong I saw a defendant refuse
to handle a Bible in court, and when the irate English
judge demanded his reasons, calmly replied that the
witness who had just laid down the book had the plague,
and it was so proved.

The first case was that of a Chinese, member of the
Shan-Shan syndicate which owned a store in Atuona.
He was charged with shooting kukus without a license.
There were not many of these small green doves left in
the islands, and the governor, whose favorite sport and
Selicacy they were, was righteously angered at the
Chinaman's infraction of the law. He fined the culprit
twenty dollars, and confiscated to the realm the murder-
ous rifle which had aided the crime.

The Shan- Shan man was stunned, and expostulated
so long that he was led out by Flag, the gendarme, after
being informed that he might appeal to Tahiti. He
was forcibly put off the veranda, struggling to explain
that he had not shot the gun, but had merely carried it as
a reserve weapon in case he should meet a Chinese with
whom he had a feud.

A sailor of the schooner Roberta, who had stolen a
case of absinthe from Captain Capriata's storeroom
aboard and destroyed the peace of a valley to which he
took it as a present to a feminine friend, was fined five
dollars and sentenced to four months' work on the roads.

The criminal docket done, civil cases were called.
The barefooted bailiff, Flag, stole out on the veranda
occasionally to take a cigarette from the inhabitants of
the valley of Taaoa, who crowded the lawn around the
veranda steps. All save Kahuiti, they had come over

IN : THE SOUTH SEAS 411

the mountains to attend in a body a trial in which two
of them figured the ease of Santos vs. Tahiaupehe
(Daughter of the Pigeon).

Santos was a small man, born in Guam, and had been
ten years in Taaoa, having deserted from a ship. He
and I talked on the veranda in Spanish, and he ex-
plained the desperate plight into which love had dragged
him* He adored Tahaiupehe, the belle of Taaoa. For
months he had poured at her feet all his earnings, and
faithfully he had labored at copra-making to gain money
for her. He had lavished upon her all his material
wealth and the fierce passion of his Malay heart, only
to find her disdainful, untrue, and, at last, a runaway.
While he was in the forest, he said, climbing cocoanut-
trees to provide her with luxuries, she had fled his hut,
carrying with her a certain "Singaire" and a trunk.
He was in court to regain this property.

ff Ben Santos me Tahaiupehe mave! A mai i ndf*
cried Flag, pompously. The pair entered the court, but
all others were excluded except me. As a distinguished
visitor, waiting to breakfast with the judge and the
clerk, I had a seat.

The Daughter of the Pigeon, comely and voluptuous,
wore an expression of brazen bitterness such as I have
seen on the faces of few women. A procuress in White-
chapel and a woman in America who had poisoned half
a dozen of her kin had that same look; sneering, desper-
ate, contemptuous, altogether evil. I wondered what
experiences had written those lines on the handsome face
of Daughter of the Pigeon.

Ben Santos was sworn. Through the interpreter he
told his sad tale of devotion and desertion and asked for

412 WHITE SHADOWS

his property. The Singaire had been bought of the
German store. He had bought it that Daughter of the
Pigeon might mend his garments, since she had refused
to do so without it. He had not given it to her at all,
but allowed her the use of it in consideration of "love
and affection" he swore.

Daughter of the Pigeon glared at the unhappy little
man with an intensity of hatred that alarmed me for his
life. She took the stand, malevolently handsome in
finery of pink tunic, gold ear-rings, and necklace of red
peppers, barefooted, bare-armed, barbaric. She spat
out her words.

"This man made love to me and lived with me. He
gave me the sewing-machine and the trunk. He is a
runt and a pig, and I am tired of him. I left his hut
and went to the house of my father. I took my Singaire
and my trunk."

"Ben Santos," inquired the judge, with a critical
glance at Daughter of the Pigeon, "What return did
you make to this woman for keeping your house?"

"I provided her food and her dresses," stammered the
little man.

"Food hangs from trees, and dresses are a few yards
of stuff," said the surgical Solomon. "The fair ones
of the Marquesas do not give themselves to men of your
plainness for popoi and muslin robes. You are a for-
eigner. You expect too much. The preponderance of
probability, adcjed to the weight of testimony, causes the
court to believe that this woman is the real owner of the
sewing-machine and the trunk. It is so adjudged."

"La mujer es rnia cKdbola, pero me gusto mucJio"

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

said Santos to me, and sighed deeply. "The woman is
a devil, but I like her very much."

The unfortunate Malay got upon his horse and, his
soul deep in the swamp of jealousy, departed to resume
his copra-making.

Court adjourned. The judge, the clerk, and the in-
terpreter, Daughter of the Pigeon, and I toasted the
blind goddess in rum, the sun being very hot on the iron
roof. Bauda and I stayed to breakfast at eleven o'clock,
and the governor permitted me to look through the
dossier of Daughter of the Pigeon. This record is kept
of all Marquesans or others resident in the islands; each
governor adds his facts and prejudices and each new-
coming official finds the history and reputation of each
of his charges set down for his perusal In this record
of Daughter of the Pigeon I found the reason for the
malevolent character depicted by her face.

The men of the hills have a terrible custom of captur-
ing any woman of another valley who goes alone in their
district. Grelet's first companion was caught one night
by forty, who for punishment built the ten kilometres
of road between Haniapa and Atuona. Many Daugh-
ters, the beautiful little leper, when thirteen years old
was a victim of seventeen men, some of whom were im-
prisoned. Daughter of the Pigeon had had a fearful
experience of this kind. It had seared her soul, and
Santos was paying for his sex.

In feud times this custom was a form of retaliation, as
the slaying of men and eating them. It has survived as
a sport. Lest horror should spend itself upon these na-
tives of the islands, I mention that in every state in our

WHITE SHADOWS

union similar records blacken our history. War's pages
from the first glimmerings to the last foul moment reek
with this deviltry. British and French at Badajoz and
Tarragona, in Spain, left fearful memories. Occident
and Orient alike are guilty. This crime smutches the
chronicle of every invasion. It is part of the degrada-
tion of slums in all our cities, a sport of hoodlum gangs
everywhere. In the Marquesas it is a recognized,
though forbidden, game, and has its retaliatory side.
Time was when troops of women have revenged it in
strange, savage ways.

This unsubmissive and aggressive attitude of Mar-
quesan women was brought home to me this very after-
noon after the trial, when Daughter of the Pigeon came
galloping up to my cabin. She reined in her horse like
a cowboy who had lassoed a steer and, throwing the
bridle over the branch of an orange-tree, tripped into
my living-room, where I was writing.

Without a word she put her arms around me, and in
a moment I was enacting the part of Joseph when he
fled from Potiphar's wife. With some muscular exer-
tion I got her out of the house at the cost of my shirt.
Puafaufe {Drink of Beer) , a chief of Taaoa, appeared
at this moment, while I was still struggling with her
upon my paepae.

"MaJcimaki oJdoJd i te! An ungovernable creature!'*
he commented, shaking his head, and looking on with
interest as she again attacked me vigorously, to the dan-
ger of my remaining shreds of garments. Chivalry is
not a primitive emotion, but it dies hard in the civilized
brain, and I was attempting the impossible. Fending
her off as best I could, I conjured the chief by the red

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 415

stripe on the sleeve of his white jacket, his badge of of-
fice, to rescue me, for Madame Bapp was now on her
paepae, craning her fat neck, and I had no mind to be
laughed at by my own tint.

The chief, however, maintained the impartial attitude
of the bystander at a street fight. Smothered in the em-
braces of Daughter of the Pigeon, covered with embar-
rassment, I struggled and cursed, and had desperately
decided to fling her bodily over the eight-foot wall of
the paepae into the jungle, when another arrival dashed
up the trail. This was the brother of Daughter of the
Pigeon.

It was evident that my cabin had been appointed as a
rendezvous, though I had no acquaintance with any of
my three visitors. A suspicion was born in my dull
brain. To make it surety, I grasped my feminine wooer
by wrists and throat and thrust her into the arms of the
chief with a stern injunction to hold her. Then, with-
out hint of my intention, I hastened into the house and
brought forth the demijohn and cocoanut-shells.

The amorous fury of Daughter of the Pigeon melted
into gratitude, and after two drinks apiece the company
galloped away, leaving me to repair tattered garments
and thank my stars for my supply of namu.

But the end of court-day was not yet. I had barely
fallen into my first slumber that night when I was awak-
ened by the disconsolate Shan-Shan man, who came
humbly to present me with a half-pound doughnut of his
own making, and to beg my intercession with the gov-
ernor for the return of his gun. He reiterated tearfully
that he had not meant to shoot Tcukus with it, that he had
not done so, that he desired it only in order to be able to

416 WHITE SHADOWS

take a pot-shot at the offending countryman in the vil-
lage. He urged desperately that the other Chinese still
possessed a gun well oiled and loaded. He asserted
even with tears that he had all respect and admiration
for the white man's law. But he wanted his gun, and
he wanted it quickly.

I calmed him with the twice-convenient namu, and
after promising to explain the situation to the governor,
I sat for some time on my paepae in the moonlight, talk-
ing with the unhappy convict. Without prompting he
divulged to me that my suspicions had been correct;
Drink of Beer had himself instigated the raid of the bold
Daughter of the Pigeon upon my rum. Drink of Beer,
it appeared, was known in the islands for many feats of
successful duplicity. One had nearly cost the life of
Jean Richard, a young Frenchman who worked for the
German trader in Taka-Uka,

"Earth Worm was a man of Taaoa," said my guest,
sitting cross-legged on my mats, his long-nailed, yellow
fingers folded in his lap. "He was nephew of Pohue-
toa, eater of many men. Earth Worm was arrested by
Drink of Beer and brought before the former governor,
LaiHieugue, known as Little Pig.

"Drink of Beer said that Earth Worm had made
namu enata, the juice of the flower of the palm that
makes men mad. Earth Worm swore that he had done
no wrong. He swore that Drink of Beer had allowed
him, for a price, to make the namu enata, and that Drink
of Beer had said this was according to the law. But
when he failed to pay again, Drink of Beer had arrested
him.

"Drink of Beer said this was not true. He wore the

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 417

red stripe on his sleeve; therefore the governor Little
Pig said that Earth Worm lied, and sent him to prison
for a year.

"Now Earth Worm was an informed man, a son of
many chiefs, and himself resolved in his ways. He said
that he would speak before the courts of Tahiti, and he
would not go in shame to the prison. ' At this time that
governor was finished with his work here and was de-
parting on a ship to Tahiti, and Earth Worm with hate
in his heart, embarked on that ship, saying nothing, but
thinking much.

"He lived forward with the crew, and said nothing,
but thought. Others spoke to him, saying that he would
not profit by the journey to Tahiti where the word of the
governor was powerful, but he did not reply. The men
of the crew wished Earth Worm to kill the governor, for
every Marquesan hated him, and he had done a terrible
thing for which he deserved death.

"There had been an aged gendarme who fell ill be-
cause of a curse laid on him by a tahuna. He was
dying. This governor took from his box in the house of
medicines a sharp small knife, and with it he cut the
veins of a Marquesan who had done some small wrong
against the law and lay in jail. He bound this man by
the arm to the gendarme who was dying, and through
the cut the blood ran into the gendarme's veins. His
heart sucked the blood from the body of the Marquesan
like a vampire bat of the forest, and he lay bound, feel-
ing the blood go from him. The village knew that this
was being done, and could do nothing but hate and fear,
for it was the governor who had done it.

"The gendarme died, and you may yet see on the

418 WHITE SHADOWS

beach sometimes that man who was a strong and brave
Marquesan. He trembles now like kotu leaves in the
wind, for he never forgets the terrible magic done upon
him by that governor. He remembers the hours when
he lay bound to that man who was dying, and the dying
man sucked his blood from him.

"Now this governor was on the ship going away, and
he had not been killed. This made all Marquesans sad,
and those in the crew talked to Earth Worm, who had
also been wronged, and urged him to rise and strike.
But he said nothing.

"The ship came to the Paumotas, and the governor sat
all day long on a stool on the deck, watching the islands
as they passed. Earth Worm sat in his place, watch-
ing the governor. One night at dark he rose, and tak-
ing an iron rod laid beside him by one of the crew he
crept along the deck and stood behind the man on the
stool. He raised the iron rod and brought it down with
fury upon the head of that man, who fell covered with
blood. Then he leaped into the sea*

"But the governor had gone below, and it was Jean
Richard who sat on the stool in the darkness. He was
found bleeding upon the deck, and the bones of his head
were cut and lifted and patched, so that to-day he lives,
as well as ever. Earth Worm was never found. A
boat with a lantern was lowered, but it found nothing
but the fins of sharks.

"That was the work of Drink of Beer, who had hated
Earth Worm because he was a brave and strong man of
Taaoa. When this was told to Drink of Beer, he smiled
and said, 'Earth Worm is safer where he is.'

"I have talked too much. Your rum is very good. I

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 419

thank you for your kindness. You will not forget to
deign to speak to the governor concerning the matter
of the gun?'*

I promised that I would not forget, and after a pro-
longed leavetaking the Shan-Shan man slipped silently
down the trail and vanished in the moon-lit forest.

CHAPTER XXXVI

The madman Great Moth of the Night; story of the famine and the one
family that ate pig.

LE BRUJSTNEC, the trader, was opening a roll
of Tahiti tobacco five feet long, five inches in
diameter at the center, and tapering toward the
ends. It was bound, as is all Tahiti tobacco, in a purau
rope, which had to be unwound and which weighed two
pounds. The eleven pounds of tobacco were hard as
wood, the leaves cemented by moisture. Le Brunnec
hacked it with an axe into suitable portions to sell for
three francs a pound, the profit on which is a franc.

The immediate customer was Tavatini (Many Pieces
of Tattooing), a rich man of Taaoa, in his fifties. His
face was grilled with ama ink. One streak of the nat-
ural skin alone remained. Beside him on the counter
sat a commanding-looking man, whose eyes, shining
from a blue background of tattooing, were signals to
make one step aside did one meet him on the trail.
They had madness in them, but they were a revelation
of wickedness.

Some men, without a word or gesture, make you think
intently. There is that in their appearance which starts
a train of ideas, of wonder, of guesses at their past, of
horror at what is written upon their faces. This man's
visage was seamed and wrinkled in a network of lines
that said more plainly than words that he was a monster
whose villainies would chill imagination. The brain was
a spoiled machine, but it had been all for evil.

420

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 421

"That man/' said Le Brunnec, "is the worst devil in
the Marquesas." Between blows of the axe, the trader
told me something of his history:

The madman was Mohuho, whose name means Great
Moth of the Night. He is the chief whom Lying Bill
saw shoot three men in Tahuata for sheer wantonness.
He was then chief of Tahuata, and the power in that
island, in Hiva-oa and Fatu-hiva. He slew every one
who opposed him. He was the scourge of the islands.
He harried valley after valley for lust of blood and the
terrible pride of the destroyer. It was his boast that he
had killed sixty people by his own hand, otherwise than
in battle.

He was a man of ceaseless energy, a builder of roads,
of houses, and canoes. At Hapatone he had con-
structed several miles of excellent road with the en-
forced labor of every man in the valley for a year. It
is 'all lined with temanu trees, is almost solid stone, and
endures. Its blocks are cemented with blood, for Great
Moth of the Night drove men to the work with bullets.

His arsenal was stocked by the French, whose ally he
was, and to whom he was very useful in furnishing men
for work and in upholding French supremacy. In
Hapatone he was virtually a king, and the fear of him
extended throughout the southern Marquesas.

One day he came as a guest to a feast in Taaoa.
There was a blind man, a poor, harmless fellow, who
was eating the pig and popoi and saying nothing-
Great Night Moth had a new gun, which he laid beside
him while he drank plentifully of the namu enata, until
he became quite drunk.

At last the blind man, scared by his threats, started to

422 WHITE SHADOWS

walk away in the slow, halting way of the sightless, and
attracted Great Night Moth's attention. He picked up
his new gun and while all were petrified with fear of
being the target, he shot the blind man so that his body
fell into the oven in which the pig had been baked. The
people could only laugh loudly, if not heartily, as if
pleased by the joke.

In Hana-teio a man in a cocoanut-tree gathering nuts
was ordered to come down by Great Night Moth who
was passing on a boar hunt. The man became confused.
His limbs did not cling to the tree as usual. He was
fearful and could make no motion.

"Poponohoo! Ve moi! A haa tata! Come down
quickly 1" yelled the chief.

The poor wretch could not obey. He saw the gun
and knew the chief* Great Night Moth brought him
down a corpse.

There was no punishment for him. The French held
him accountable only for deeds against their sovereignty.
A superstition that he was protected by the gods, com-
bined with his strength and desperate courage, made
him immune from vengeance by the islanders.

These were incidents Le Brunnec knew from wit-
nesses, but it was Many Pieces of Tattooing who told
the ancestry of Great Night Moth.

"Pohue-toa (Male Package) uncle of Earth Worm,
was prince of Taaoa and father of this man," said Many
Pieces. "He was one of the biggest men of these is-
lands, and the strongest in Taaoa. He lived for a while
in Hana-menu.

* 'There was no war then between the valley of Atuona

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 423

and that of Hana-inenu; the people of both crossed the
mountains and visited one another. But it was dis-
covered in Atuona that a number of the people were
missing. Some had gone to Hana-menu and never
reached there, others had disappeared on their way
home. The chief of Atuona sent a messenger who was
tapu in all valleys, to count the people of this valley who
were in Hana-menu and to warn them to return in a
band, armed with spears. Meanwhile the priest went
to the High Place and spoke to the gods, and after two
days and nights he returned and said that the danger
was at the pass between the valleys; that a demon had
seized the people there.

"The demon was 'Male Package. You know the
precipice there is near the sky, and at the very height
is a puta faiti, a narrow place. There Male Package
lay in wait, armed with his spear and club, and hidden in
the grass. He was hungry for meat, for Long Pig,
and when he saw some one he fancied, he threw his spear
or struck them down with the uu. He took the corpse
on his back and carried it to his hut in the upper valley
of Hana-menu as I would carry a sack of copra. There
he ate what he would, alone.

"Oh, there were those who knew, but they were afraid
to tell After it became known to the people of Atuona,
to the kin of those who had been eaten, they did nothing.
Male Package was like Great Night Moth later a man
whom the gods fought for/'

Great Night Moth sat smoking, listening to what was
said in the listless way that lunatics listen, unable to
focus his attention, but gathering in his addled brain

424 WHITE SHADOWS

that he was being discussed. I watched him as one does
a caged tiger, guessing at the beast's thoughts and
thankful that it can prey no more.

Many Pieces of Tattooing had no tone of horror or
regret in his voice while he recounted the bloody deeds
of Mohuho and Pohue-toa, but smiled, as if he would
say that they had occurred under a different dispensa-
tion and were not blameful.

"Was Great Night Moth the real son of Male Pack-
age?" I asked.

"Ah, that is to be told," said Many Pieces. "He was
his son, yes. Shall I tell you the tale of how he escaped
death at the hands of his father? Ea! I remember the
time well Menike, you have seen the rivers big and
the cocoanut-trees felled by the flood, but you have not
seen the ave one, the time of no food, when the ground
is as dry as the center of a dead tree, and hunger is in
the valleys like the ghost-women that move as mist.
There have been many such periods for the island peo-
ples.

"That two years it did not rain. The breadfruit
would not yield. The grass and plants died. There
were no nuts on the palms. The pigs had no food, and
fell in the forest. The banana-trees withered. The
people ate the popoi from the deepest pits, and day and
night they fished. Soon the pits were empty and the
people ate roots, bark, anything. There were fish, but
it is hard to live on fish alone,

"Some lay in their canoes and ate the eva and died.
The stomachs of some became empty of thought, and
they threw themselves into the sea. The father of Great
Night Moth sent all his children to the hills. There is

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 425

always more rain there, and there was some food to be
found. His wife he kept at the fishing, day and night,
till she slept at the paddle, and he himself went to the
high plateaus to hunt for pig.

"For many days he came down weak, having found
none. But at last she came to find baked meat ready
for her, and she wept and ate and thanked him. He
had found a certain green spot, he said, where there were
more.

"Many times he brought the meat to her, and she said
that the children should come back to share the food,
but he said, 'No. Eat! They have plenty.'

"She came from the fishing one day with empty
baskets. The sea had been rough, and there were no
fish. Her husband had become a surly man, and cruel;
he beat her. She said, "Is there no pig?'

" Tig, you fool!' said her husband. 'You have eaten
no pig. You have eaten your children. They are all
dead.'

"Great Night Moth had escaped because he had been
adopted by the chief of Taaoa, while his father was
hunting the children in the forest."

"That is horrible, horrible!" said Le Brunnec.
"Maybe this Great Night Moth could not but be bad
with such a father. All these chiefs, the hereditary
ones, are rotten. Their children are often insane.
They have degenerated. After the whalers came and
gave them whiskey, and the traders absinthe and drugs,
they learned the vices of the white man, which are worse
for them than for us."

"Do you think the eating of men began by the ave one,
the famine?" I put the question to Many Pieces of

WHITE SHADOWS

Tattooing, who was about to leave the store with Great
Night Moth.

ff Ae, tiatohu! It is so 5 " he answered. "Our legends
say that often in the many centuries we have remem-
bered there have been years when food failed. It was
in those times that they began to eat one another, and
when food was plenty, they continued for revenge.
They learned to like it. Human meat is good."

"Ask the gentleman if he has himself enjoyed such
feasts," I urged Le Brunnec.

"I will not!" said the Frenchman, hastily. "Tavatini
is a good customer. He has money on deposit with me.
He eats biscuits and beef. He might be offended and
buy of the Germans."

Many Pieces of Tattooing nudged Great Night
Moth, and they advanced to their horses, which were tied
to the store building. The madman mounted with the
ease of a cowboy, and they rode off at speed.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A visit to the hermit of Taha-Uka valley; the vengeance that made the
ScaUamera lepers; and the hatred of Mohuto.

LE VERGOSE, a Breton planter who lived in
Taka-Uka Valley, was full of camaraderie,
esteeming friendship a genuine tie, and given to
many friendly impulses. He had a two-room cabin set
high on the slope of the river bank, unadorned, but
clean, and though his busy, hardworking days gave him
little time for social intercourse, he occasionally invited
me there to dinner with him and his wife.

One Sunday he dined me handsomely on eels stewed
in white wine, tame duck, and codfish balls, and after the
dance, in which his wife, Ghost Girl, Malicious Gossip,
Water, and the host joined, we sat for some time sing-
ing "Malbrouck se va t'en guerre," "La Carmagnole,"
and other songs of France. Stirred by the memories
of home, these melodies awakened, Le Vergose remem-
bered a countryman who lived nearby.

"There is a hermit who lives a thousand feet up the
valley," said he. "We might take him half a litre of
rum. He is a Breton of Brest who has been here many
years. He eats nothing but bananas, for he lives in a
banana grove, and he is able only to totter to the river
for water. He never moves from his little hut except to
pick a few bananas. He lives alone. Hardly any one
sees him from year to year. I think he would be glad tc
have a visitor."

A wet and slippery trail through the forest along the
river bank led toward the hermit's grove. Toiling up it

427

428 WHITE SHADOWS

sliding and clutching the boughs that overhung and al-
most obliterated it, we passed a small native house of
straw, almost hidden by the trees, and were hailed by the
voice of a woman.

"I hea? Where do you go?" The words were sharp,
with a tone almost of anxiety, of fear,

"We go to see Hemeury Francois," replied Le Ver-
gose.

The woman who had spoken came half-way down the
worn and dirty steps of her paepae. She was old, but
with an age more of bitter and devastating emotion than
of years. Her haggard face, drawn and seamed with
cruel lines, showed still the traces of a beauty that had
been hard and handsome rather than lovely. She said
nothing more, but stood watching our progress, her tall
figure absolutely motionless in its dark tunic, her eyes
curiously intent upon us. I felt relief when the thick
curtains of leaves shut us from her view.

"That is Mohuto," said Le Vergose. "She is a soli-
tary, too. All her people have died, and she has become
hard and bitter. That is a strange thing, for an is-
lander. But she was beautiful once. Perhaps she
broods upon that."

We entered the banana-grove, an acre or two of huge
plants, thirty feet high, so close together that the sun
could not touch the soil. The earth was dank and dark,
almost a swamp, and the trees were like yellowish-green
ghosts in the gloom. Their great soft leaves shut out
the sky, and from their limp edges there was a ceaseless
drip of moisture. A horde of mosquitos, black and
small, emerged from the shadows, thousands upon thou-
sands, and smote us upon every exposed part. In a

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 429

few minutes our faces were smeared with blood from
their killing. Curses in Breton, in Marquesas and
American rent the stillness.

In this dismal, noisome spot was a wretched hut built
of purau saplings, as crude a dwelling as the shelter a
trapper builds for a few days 5 habitation. It was ten
feet long and four wide, shaky and rotten. Inside it
was like the lair of a wild beast, a bed of pioldy leaves.
A line stretched just below the thatched roof held a few
discolored newspapers.

On the heap of leaves sat the remnant of a man, a
crooked skeleton in dirty rags, his face a parchment of
wrinkles framed by a mass of whitening hair. He
looked ages old, his eyes small holes, red rimmed, his
hands, in which he held a shaking piece of paper, foul
claws. His flesh, through his rags, was the deadly white
of the morgue. He looked a Thing no soul should ani-
mate.

"Ah! Hemeury Francois," said Le Vergose in the
Breton dialect that recalled their childhood home, "I
have brought an American to see you. You can talk
your English to him."

"By damn, yes," croaked the hermit, in the voice of a
raven loosed from a deserted house. But he made no
movement until Le Vergose held before his bone-like
nose a pint of strong Tahiti rum. Far back in his eyes,
away beyond the visible organs, there came a gleam of
greater consciousness, a realization of life around him.
His mouth, like a rent in an old, battered purse, gaped,
and though no teeth were there, the vacuity seemed to
smile feebly.

He felt about the litter of paper and leaves and found

430 WHITE SHADOWS

a dirty cocoanut-shell and a calabash of water. Shak-
ing and gasping, he poured the bottle of rum into the
shell, mixed water with it and lifted the precious elixir
tremblingly to his lips. He made two choking swal-
lows, and dropped the shell empty.

His eyes, that had been lost in their raw sockets,
scanned me. Then in mixed French and English he be-
gan to talk of himself. From his rags he produced a
rude diary blocked off on scraps of paper, a minute rec-
ord of the river and the weather, covering many years,

"Torrent, torrent, torrent," That word was re-
peated many times. Hause appeared often, signifying
that the brook had risen. Every day he had noted its
state. The river had become his god. Alone among
those shadowing, dripping banana-plants, with no hu-
man companionship, he had made his study of the moods
of the stream a worship. Pages and pages were in-
scribed with lines upon its state.

"Bacchus," I saw repeated on the dates July 13, 14,
15.

"Another god on the altar then?" I asked.

"Mats, ouif* he answered in his rusty voice. "The
Fall of the Bastile. Le Vergose sent me a bottle of rum
to honor the Republic."

What he had just drunk was seething in him. Little
by little he commanded that long disused throat, he re-
called from the depths of his uncertain mind words and
phrases. In short, jerky sentences, mostly French, he
spun his tale.

"Brest is my home, in Finnistere. I have been many
years in these seas. I forget how many. How many
years ? Sacre! I was on the Mongol She was two

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 431

thousand tons, clipper, and with skysails. The captain
was Freeman. We brought coals from Boston to San
Francisco. That was long ago. I was young, I was
young and handsome. And strong. Yes, I was strong
and young.

"That was it the Mongol. A clipper-ship from
Boston, two thousand tons, and with skysails. Around
the Horn it almost blew the sticks out of that Mongol*
We froze ; we worked day and night. It was terrible.
The seas almost drowned us. Ah, how we cursed!
Tonnerre de dieut Had we known it we were in Para-
dise. The inferno we were coming to the inferno."

It took him long to tell it. He wanted to talk, but
weakness overcame him often, and the words were al-
most hushed by his breath that came short and wheezing.

"One day we opened the hatches to get coal for the
galley. The smell of gas arose. The coal was making
gas. No fire. Just gas. If there was fire we never
knew it. We felt no heat. We could find no fire.
But every day the gas got worse.

"It filled the ship. The watch below could not sleep
because of it. If we went aloft, still we smelled it.
The food tasted of gas. Our lungs were pressed down
by it. Day after day we sailed, and the gas sailed with
us.

"The bo'sn fell in a fit. A man on the t'gallant yard
fell to the deck and was killed. Three did not awake
one morning. We threw their bodies over the side.
The mate spat blood and called on God as he leaped into
the sea. The smell of the gas never left us.

"The captain called us by the poop-rail, and said we
must abandon the ship any time.

432 WHITE SHADOWS

"We were twenty men all told. We had four whale-
boats and a yawL Plenty for all of us. We pro-
visioned and watered the boats. But we stayed by the
Mongol. We were far from any port and we dared not
go adrift in open boats.

"Then came a calm. The gas could not lift. It set-
tled down on us. It lay on us like a weight. It never
left us for a moment. Men lay in the scuppers and
vomited. Food went untouched. No man could walk
without staggering. At last we took to the boats,
Two thousand miles from the Marquesas. We lit a
fuse, and pushed off. Half a mile away the Mongol
blew up.

"We suffered. Mon dieii, how we suffered in those
boats! But the gas was gone. We struck Vait-hua on
the island of Tahuata. It was heaven. Rivers and
trees and women. Women! S&cfil How I loved
them!

"I came to Taha-Uka with Mathieu Scallamera.
We worked for Captain Hart in the cotton, driving the
Chinese and natives. Bill Pincher was a boy, and he
worked there, too. In the moonlight on the beach there
were dances.' The women danced naked on the beaches
in the moonlight. And there was rum. Mohuto
danced. Ah, she was beautiful, beautiful! She was a
devil.

"Scallamera and I built a house, and put on the door
a lock of wood. It was a big lock, but it had no key.
The natives stole everything. We could keep nothing.
Scallamera was angry. One day he hid in the house
while I went to work. When a hand was thrust
through the opening to undo the lock, Scallamera took

IN THE. SOUTH SEAS 43ts

his brush knife and cut it off. He threw it through the
hole and said, 'That will steal no more.' "

The hermit laughed, a laugh like the snarl of a tooth-
less old tiger.

"That was a joke. Scallamera laughed. By gar!
But that without a hand lived long. He gave back all
that he had taken. He smiled at Scallamera, and
laughed, too. He worked without pay for Scallamera.
He became a friend to the man who had cut off his hand.
A year went by and two years and three and that man
gave Scallamera a piece of land by Vai-ae. He helped
Scallamera to build a house upon it.

"Land from hell it was, land cursed seven times.
Did not Scallamera become a leper and die of it hor-
ribly? And all his twelve children by that Henriette?
It was the ground. It had been leprous since the
Chinese came. Oh, it was a fine return for the cut-off
hand!"

Gasping and choking, the ghastly creature paused for
breath, and in the shuddering silence the banana-leaves
ceaselessly dripped, and the hum of innumerable mos-
quito-wings was sharp and thin.

"I did not become a leper. I was young and strong.
I was never sick. I worked all day, and at night I was
with the women. Ah, the beautiful, beautiful women!
With souls of fiends from hell. Mohuto is not dead yet.
She lives too long. She lives and sits on the path below,
and watches. She should be killed, but I have no
strength.

"I was young and strong, and loved too many women.
How could I know the devil behind her eyes when she
came wooing me again? I had left her. She was with

434 WHITE SHADOWS

child, and ugly. I loved beautiful women. But-siie
was beautiful again when the child was dead. I was
with another. What was her name? I have forgotten
her name. Is there no more rum? I remember when I
have rum.

"So I went again to Mohuto. The devil from hell!
There was poison in her embraces. Why does she not
die? She knew too much. She was too wise. It was
I who died. No, I did not die. I became old before
my time, but I am living yet. The Catholic mission
gave me this land. I planted bananas. I have never
been away* How long ago? Je ne sais pas. Twenty
years? Forty? I do not see any one. But I know
that Mohuto sits on the path below and waits. I will
live long yet."

He was like a two-days' old corpse. He rose to his
feet, staggered, and lay down on the heap of soggy
leaves. The mosquitos circled in swarms above him.
They were devouring us, but the hermit they never
lighted on. Le Vergose and I fled from the hut and
the grove.

"He is an example like those in Balzac or the religious
.books," said the Breton, crossing himself. "I have been
here many years, and never before did I come here, and
again. Jamais de la vie! I must begin to go to church
again."

We said nothing more as we slid and slipped down-
ward on the wet trail, but when we came again to the
straw hut hidden in the trees Mohuto was still on the
paepae, watching us, and I paused to speak to her.

"You knew Hemeury Francois when he was young?"

She put her hand over her eyes, and spat.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 435

"He was my first lover. I had a child by him. He
was handsome once, 3 ' Her eyes, full of malevolence,
turned to the dark grove. "He dies very slowly."

The memory of her face was with me when at mid-
night I went alone to my valley. On my pillows I
heard again the cracked voice of the hermit, and saw the
blue-white skin upon his shaking bones. He could not
believe in Po, the Marquesan god of Darkness, or in
the Veinehae, the Ghost- Woman who watches the
dying; nor did I believe in them or in Satan, but about
me in my Golden Bed until midnight was long past the
spirits that hate the light moaned and creaked the hut.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Last days in Atuona; My Darling Hope's letter from her son.

EXPLODING EGGS was building my fire of
cocoanut-husks as usual i .1 the morning to cook
my coffee and eggs, when a whistle split the
sultry air. Far from the bay it came, shrill and de-
manding; my call to civilization.

Long expected, the first liner was in the Isles of the
Cannibals. France had begun to make good her
promise to expand her trade in Oceania, and the isola-
tion of the dying Marquesans and empty valleys was
ended. The steamship Saint Franfois, from Bordeaux
by way of Tahiti, had come to visit this group and pick
up cargo for Papeite and French ports.

Strange was the sight of her in Taha-Uka Bay where
never her like had been, but stranger still, two aboard
her, the only two not French, were known to me. Here
thousands of miles from where I had seen them, uncon-
nected in any way with each other, were a pair of human
beings I had known, one in China, and the other in the
United States, both American citizens, and sent by fate
to replace me as objects of interest to the natives.

They came up from the beach together, one a small
black man, the other tall and golden brown, led by
Malicious Gossip to see the American who lived in these
far-away islands. The black lingered to talk at a dis-
tance, but the golden-brown one advanced.

His figure was the bulky one of the trained athlete,

436

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 437

stocky and tremendously powerful, his hide that of an
extreme blond burned by months of a tropic sun upon
salt water. His hair was an aureole, yellow as a sun-
flower, a bush of it on a bullet-head. And, incredible
almost as if made of putty by a joker his nose stuck
out like the first joint of a thumb, the oddest nose ever
on a man. His little eyes were blue and bright. Bare-
footed, bare-headed, ib the sleeveless shirt and short
trousers of a life-guard, with an embroidered V on the
front of the upper garment, he was radiantly healthy
and happy, a civilized being returned to nature's ways.

Though he did not recognize me, I knew him instantly
for a trainer and beach-patrol of Southern California, a
diver for planted shells at Catalina Island, whom I had
first seen plunging from the rafters of a swimming-tank,
and I remembered that he had flattened his nose by strik-
ing the bottom, and that a skilful surgeon had saved him
its remnant.

He had with him a bundle in a towel, and setting it
down on my paepae> introduced himself nonchalantly as
Broken Bronck, "Late manager of the stable of native

fighters of the Count de M of the island of Tahaa,

near Tahiti."

"I* m here to stay," he said carelessly* "I have a few
francs, and I hear they 're pretty hospitable in the Mar-
keesies. I came on the deck of the Saint Franfois^ and
I Ve brung my things ashore."

He undid the towel, and there rolled out another bath-
ing-suit and a set of boxing gloves. These were his sole
possessions, he said.

"I hear they 5 re nutty on prizefighting like in Tahiti,
and I J I1 teach 'em boxing," he explained.

438 WHITE SHADOWS

The Marquesan ladies who speedily assembled could
not take their eyes from him. They asked me a score
of questions about him, and were not surprised that I
knew him, or even that I called the negro by name when
he sauntered up. We must all be from the same valley,
or at least from the same island, they thought, for were
we not all Americans?

I kept Broken Bronck to luncheon, and gave him
what few household furnishings I had not promised to
Exploding Eggs or to Apporo, who with the promise
of the Golden Bed about to be realized for I an-
nounced my going camped upon it, hardly believing
that at last she was to own the coveted marvel. Some
keepsakes I gave to Malicious Gossip, Mouth of God,
Many Daughters, Water, Titihuti, and others, and
drank a last shell of namu with these friends.

News of my packing reached far and wide. I had
not estimated so optimistically the esteem in which they
Jield me, these companions of many months, but they
trooped from the farthest hills to say farewell. Good-
bys even to the sons and daughters of cannibals are
sorrowful. I had come to think much of these simple,
savage neighbors. Some of them I shall never for-
get.

Mauitetai, a middle-aged woman with a kindly face,
was long on my paepae. Her name would be in Eng-
lish My Darling Hope, and it well fitted her mood, for
she was all aglow with wonder and joy at receiving a
letter from her son, who three years before had gone
upon a ship and disappeared from her ken. The letter
had come upon the Saint Francois, and it brought My
Darling Hope into intimate relations with me, for I un-

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 489

covered to her that her wandering boy had become a
resident of my own country, and revealed some of the
mysteries of our polity.

The letter was in Marquesan, which I translate into
English, seeking to keep the flavor of the original,
though poorly succeeding:

"I write to you, me, Pahorai Calizte, and put on this
paper greetings to you, my mother, Mauitetai, who are
in Atuona.

"Kaoha nui tun kid, Mauitetai, mother of me. Great
love to you.

"I have found in Philadelphia work for me; good
work.

"I have found a woman for me. She is Jeanette, an
artist, a maker of tattooings on cloth. I am very happy.
I have found a house to live in. I am happy I have this
woman. She is rich. I am poor. It is for that I
write to you, to make it known to you that she is rich,
and I am poor. By this paper you will know that I
have pledged my word to this woman. I found her and
I won her by my work and by my strength and my en-
deavor.

"She is moi kandhau; as beautiful as the flowers of the
Jiutu in my own beloved valley of Atuona. She is not
of America. She is of Chile. She has paid many
piasters for the coming here. She has paid forty
piasters. She has been at home in Las Palmas, in the
islands of small golden birds.

"I will write you more in this paper. I seek your
permission to marry Jeanette. She asks it, as I do.
Send me your word by the government that carries
words on paper.

WHITE SHADOWS

"It is three years since I have known of you. That

is long.

"Give me that word I ask for this woman. I cannot
go to marry in Atuona. That is what my heart wants,
but it is far and the money is great. The woman would
pay and would come with me. I say no. I am proud.
I have shame. I am a Marquesan.

"I live with that woman now. I am not married. It
is forbidden. The American mutoi (policeman) may
take hold of me. Five months I am with this woman of
mine. The mutoi has a war-club that is hard as stone.

"Give me quickly the paper to marry her. I await
your word.

"My word is done. I ain at Philadelphia, New York
Hotel. A. P. A. Dieu. Coot pae, mama/ 5

Mauitetai had read the letter many times. It was
wonderful to hear from her son after three years and
pleasant to know he had found a woman. She must be
a haoe, a white woman. Were the women of that is-
land, Chile, white?

I said that they ran the color scale, from blond to
brown, from European to Indian, but that this Jeanette
who was a tattooer, a maker of pictures on canvas, no
doubt an artist of merit, must be pale as a moonbeam.
Those red peppers that were hot on the tongue came
from Chile, I said, and there were heaps of gold there
in the mountains.

My Darling Hope would know what kind of a valley
was Philadelphia.

It was the Valley of Brotherly Love. It was a very
big valley, with two streams, and a bay. No, it was not

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 441

near Tahiti. It was a breadfruit season away from
Atuona, at the very least.

What could a hotel be? The New York hotel in
which her poor son lived?

I did not know that hotel, I told her, but a hotel was a
house in which many persons paid to live, and some
hotels had more rooms than there were houses in all the
Marquesas.

What ! In one house, under one roof ? By my tribe,
it was true.

Did I know this woman? I was from that island and
I had been in that valley. I must have seen her.

I replied that I knew a Jeanette who answered the de-
scription beautiful, but that she was not from Chile.

Now, My Darling Hope knit her brow. Why would
the mutoi take hold of her son, as he feared?

I soothed her anxiety. The mutoi walked up and
down in front of the hotel, but he would not bother her
son as long as her son could get a few piasters now and
then to hand to him. The woman was rich, and would
not miss a trifling sum, five or ten piasters a month for
the mutoi.

But why was it forbidden for her son to live with
Jeanette, being not married to her?

That was our law, but it was seldom enforced. The
mutois were fat men who carried war-clubs and struck
the poor with them, but her son was tapu because of
Jeanette's money.

She was at ease now, she said. Her son could not
marry without her permission. No Marquesan had
ever done so. She would send the word by the next

442 WHITE SHADOWS

schooner, or I might take it with me to my own island
and hand it to her son. He could then marry.

I had done her a great kindness, but one thing more.
Neither she nor Titihuti nor Water could make out
what Pahorai Calizte meant by "Coot Pae, Mama."
U A. P. A, Dieu." was his commendation of her to God,
but Coot Pae was not Marquesan, neither was it French.
She pronounced the words in the Marquesan way, and I
knew at once. Coot pae is pronounced Coot Pye, and
Coot Pye was Pahorai Calizte's way of imitating the
American for Apae Kaoha. "Good-by, mama," was
his quite Philadelphia closing of his letter to his mother.

I addressed an envelop to her son with The Iron
Fingers That Make Words, and gave it to My Darling
Hope. A tear came in her eye. She rubbed my bare
back affectionately and caressed my nose with hers as
she smelled me solemnly. Then she went up the valley
to enlighten the hill people.

CHAPTER XXXIX

The chants of departure; night falls on the Land of the War Fleet.

ON the eve of my going all the youth and beauty
of Atuona crowded my paepae. Water
brought his ukulele, a Hawaiian ioro-patch
guitar, and sang his repertoire of ballads of Hawaii
"Aloha Oe," "Hawaii Ponoi," and "One, Two, Three,
Four." Urged by all, I gave them for the last time my
vocal masterpiece, "All Night Long He Calls Her
Snooky-Ukums !" and was rewarded by a clamor of ap-
plauding cries. Marquesans think our singing strange
and no wonder ! Theirs is a prolonged chant, a mono-
tone without tune, with no high notes and little variance.
But loving distraction, they listened with deep amuse-
ment to my rendering of American airs, as we might
listen to Chinese falsettos.

They repaid me by reciting legends of their clans, and
Titihuti chanted her genealogy, a record kept by
memory in all families. Water, her son, who had
learned to write, set it down on paper for me. It
named the ancestors in pairs, father and mother, and
Titihuti remembered thirty-eight generations, which
covered perhaps a thousand years.

We sat in a respectful circle about her while she
chanted it. An Amazon in height and weight, nearly
six feet tall, body and head cast in heroic mold, she
stood erect, her scarlet tunic gathered to display her
symmetrical legs, tattooed in thought-kindling patterns,

443

444 WHITE SHADOWS

the feet and ankles as if encased in elegant Oriental
sandals. Her red-gold hair, a flame in the ?.>:;::: ;
light of the torches, was wreathed with bright-green,
glossy leaves, necklaces of peppers and small colored
nuts rose and fell with her deep breathing.

Her voice was melodious, pitched low, and vibrating
with the peculiar tone of the chant, a tone iirposs:b!c of
imitation to one who has not learned it as a child. Her
eyes were kindled with pride of ancestry as she called
the roll of experiences and achievements of the line that
had bred her, and her clear-cut Greek features mirrored
every emotion she felt, emotions of glory and pride, of
sorrow and abasement at the fall of her race, of stoic
fortitude in the dull present and hopeless future of her
people. With one shapely arm upraised, she uttered
the names, trumpet-calls to memory and imagination:

Enata (Men) Vehine (Women)

Na tupa efitu Metui te vehine

Tupa oa ia f ai Puha Momoo

tupa haaituani O haiko

nuku Oui aei

hutu Moeakau

O oko Oinu vaa

moota O niniauo

tiu Moafitu otemau

Fekei O mauniua

tuoa Hotaei

meae Oa tua hae

tehu eo Kei pana

ahunia Tui haa

taa tini Kei pana

Nohea Tou mate

Tua kina Papa ohe

Tepiu Punoa

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

4*45

Tui feaa
Naani Eiva
Teani nui nei
Ani hetiti
kou aehitini
O taupo
Tui pahu
O hupe
papuaei
Pepene tona
Haheinutu
Kotio nui
Motu haa
Hope taupo
Taupo tini
Ana tete
Ehiputona
Taua kahiepo
Mahea tete
Aino tete tika
Kui motua

Tufaina
Eio Hoki
tapu ohi
Opu tini
take oho
O te heva
Otiu hoku
Oahu tupua
honu f eti
Honu tona
taoho
Taihaupu
Mu eiamau
Tuhi pahu
Anitia fitu
Pa efitu

Tahio paha oho
Honu tona
Titihuti
Tua vahiane
Titihuti

Loud sang the names themselves, proclaiming the
merits of their bearers or their fathers in heraldic words,
in titles like banners on castle walls, flying the standard
of ideals and attainments of men and women long since
dust.

Masters of Sea and Land, Commander of the Stars,
Orderers of the Waxing and Waning of the Moon,
Ten Thousand Ocean Tides, Man of Fair Countenance,
Caller to Myriads, Climber to the Ninth Heaven, Man
of Understanding, Player of the Game of Life, Doer of
Deeds of Daring, Ten Thousand Cocoanut Leaves, The
Enclosure of the Whale's Tooth, Man of the Forbidden
Place, The Whole Blue Sky, Player of the War Drum,

446 WHITE SHADOWS

The Long Stayer; these were the names that called
down the centuries, bringing back to Titihuti and to us
who sat at her feet in the glow of the torches the fame
and glory of her people through ages past.

How compare such names with John Smith or Henry
Wilson? Yet we ourselves, did we remember it, have
come from ancestors bearing names as resonant. Nero
was Ahenobarbus, the Red-Bearded, to his contempo-
raries of Rome, at the time when Titihuti's forefathers
were brave and great beneath the cocoanut-palms of
Atiiona. Our lists of early European kings carry
names as full of meaning as theirs; Charles the Ham-
mer, Edward the Confessor, Charles the Bold, Richard
the Lion-Hearted, Hereward the Wake.

Titihuti, having gravely finished her chant, stood for
a moment in silence. Then, ff Aue! J * she said with a
sigh. "No one will remember when I am gone.
Water, my son, nor Keke, my daughter, have learned
these names of their forefathers and mothers who were
noble and renowtied. What does it matter? We will
all be gone soon, and the cocoanut-groves of our islands
will know us no more. We come, we do not know
whence, and we go* we do not know where. Only the
sea endures, and it does not remember."

She sat on the mat beside me, and pressed my hand.
I had been adopted as her son, and she was sorry to
see me departing to the unknown island from which I
had come, and from which, she knew, I would never
return. She was mournful; she said that her heart was
heavy. But I praised lavishly her beautifully tattooed
legs, and complimented the decoration of her hair until
she smiled again, and when from the shadowy edges

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 4*7

of the ring of torch-light voices began an old chant of
feasting, she took it up with the others.

There were Marquesans who could recite one hundred
and f orty-fiye generations of their families, covering
more than thirty-six hundred years. Enough to make
family trees that go back to the Norman conquest ap-
pear insignificant. I had known an old Maori priest
who traced his ancestry to Rangi and Papa, through
one hundred and eighty-two generations, 4,550 years.
The Easter Islanders spoke of fifty-seven generations,
and in Raratonga ninety pairs of ancestors are recited.
The pride of the white man melts before such records.

Such incidents as the sack of Jerusalem, the Crusades,
or Caesar's assassination, are recent events compared
to the beginnings of some of these families, whose last
descendants have died or are dying to-day-

I took Titihuti's words with me as I went down the
trail from my little blue cabin at the foot of Temetiu
for the last time: "We come, we do not know whence,
and we go, we do not know where. Only the sea en-
dures, and it does not remember/'

Great Fern, Haabuani, Exploding Eggs, and Water
carried my bags and boxes to the shore, while I said
adieus to the governor, Bauda, and Le Brunnec.
When I reached the beach all the people of the valley
were gathered there. They sat upon the sand, men and
women and children, and intoned my farewell ode
my pae me io te:

"Apae!

Kaoha ! te Mcnike !
Mau oti oe anao nei
i te apua Kahito

448 WHITE SHADOWS

o a'Tahiti.

Ei e tihe to metao iau e hoa iriti oei au ote vei mata to taua.
E avei atu."

"0, farewell to you, American !
You go to far-distant Tahiti !
There you will stay, but you will weep for me.
Ever I shall be here, and the tears fall like the river flows.
friend and lover, the time has come. Farewell !"

The sky was ominous and the boats of the Saint
Franpois were running a heavy surf. I waded waist-
deep through the breakers to climb into one. Malicious
Gossip, Ghost Girl and the little leper lass, Many
Daughters, were sobbing, their dresses lifted to their
eyes.

"Hee poilioo!" cried the steersman. The men in the
breakers shoved hard, and leaped in, and we were
gone,

My last hour in the Marquesas had come. I should
never return. The beauty, the depressingness of these
islands is overwhelming. Why could not this idyllic,
fierce, laughter-loving people have stayed savage and
strong, wicked and clean? The artists alone have
known the flower destroyed here, the possible growth
into greatness and purity that was choked in the smoke
of white lust and greed.

At eight o'clock at night we were ready to depart.

The bell in the engine-room rang, the captain shouted
orders from the bridge, the anchors were hoisted aboard.
The propeller began to turn. The searchlight of the
Saint Franpois played upon the rocky stairway of Taha-
Uka, penciled for a moment the dark line of the cliffs,

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 449

swept the half circle into Atuona Inlet, and lingered
on the white cross of Calvary where Gauguin lies.

The gentle rain in the shaft of light looked like quick-
silver. The smoke from the funnel mixed in the heavy
air with the mist and the light, and formed a fantastic
beam of vapor from the ship to the shore. Up this
stream of quivering, scintillating irradiation, as bril-
liant as flashing water in the sun, flew from the land
thousands of gauze-winged insects, the great moths of
the night, wondrous, shimmering bits of life, seeming
all fire in the strange atmosphere. Drawn from their
homes in the dark groves by this marvelous illumina-
tion, they climbed higher and higher in the dazzling
splendor until they reached its source, where they
crumpled and died. They seemed the souls of the island
folk.

r

They pass mute, falling like the breadfruit in their
dark groves. Soon none will be left to tell their de-
parted glories. Their skulls perhaps shall speak to the
stranger who comes a few decades hence, of a manly
people, once magnificently perfect in body, masters of
their seas, unexcelled in the record of humanity in
beauty, vigor, and valor.

To-day, insignificant in numbers, unsung in history,
they go to the abode of their dark spirits, calmly and
without protest. A race goes out in wretchedness, a
race worth saving, a race superb in manhood when the
whites came. Nothing will remain of them but their
ruined monuments, the relics of their temples and High
Places, remnants of the mysterious past of one of the
strangest people of time.

The Saint Franpois surged past the Roberta^ the old

450 WHITE SHADOWS

sea-wolf, worn and patched, but sturdy in the gleam
of the searchlight. Capriata, the old Corsican, stood
on his deck watching us go.

I waked aft and took my last view of the Marquesas.
The tops of the mountains were jagged shadows against
the sky, dark and mournful. The arc-light swung to
shine upon the mouth of the hay, and the Land of the
War Fleet was blotted out in the black night.

Some day when deeper poverty falls on Asia or the
fortunes of war give all the South Seas to the Samurai,
these islands will again be peopled. But never again
will they know such beautiful children of nature, pas-
sionate and brave, as have been destroyed here. They
shall have passed as did the old Greeks, but they will
have left no written record save the feeble and mis-
understanding observations of a few alien visitors.

Apd! Kaoha el

TEE END